North of the forty-fifth parallel a January sky at ten at night is a spectacle nobody is outside to watch — cottages dark, lakes locked, the road a pale ribbon between snowbanks. Northern Lights Property Services LLC is out in it anyway, plowing and shoveling and salting so a Petoskey drive stands open whether the house is full or empty. In the green months those same properties get mowed, trimmed, edged and cleaned up, so the place never looks like it was waiting on somebody to come back. There is a particular pride in pulling up to a house nobody is watching and doing the work exactly the same as if they were. The lights come on again in June, and the yard looks as though it never went to sleep.