Ontonagon takes its winter straight off Lake Superior with the Porcupine Mountains standing to the west, and the snow that falls here falls in feet rather than inches. We plow all through it — drives opened wide, walkways cleared, the steps treated where thaw and freeze keep trading places. Then the country turns around in a hurry: by June the river runs open, the light stays late, and those same yards want mowing, trimming and edging every single week. Fall cleanups take the leaves and the summer's growth away before the first real snow settles on top of them. Working a property the year around means learning where the drifts pile up and where the grass burns off, and both of those matter a great deal in Ontonagon County.