Specialty Snow, Lawn and Tree

About Specialty Snow, Lawn and Tree

A February storm reaches Eagan from the northwest, sweeping over the Minnesota River bluffs and stacking up along Highway 13 while the town sleeps. Specialty Snow, Lawn and Tree is already out in it — plow lights moving through Cedar Grove and up the hills off Blackhawk Road, blades down, working the driveways so they are bare pavement before the first commuter backs out. There is a particular satisfaction in that hour: the streetlamps still on, the snow still falling, and a walkway shoveled and salted so cleanly it looks like the storm skipped it. When the drifts finally quit, the same hands turn to the green months — cutting lawns and tending trees through Eagan's short, bright summers. Winter here is not an interruption to the work; it is the work, and this crew treats a cleared drive at 5 a.m. as its signature. The town wakes up, and the way is already open.