Stephens Lake freezes slow and uneven most winters, the geese pushed to whatever open water is left near the dam, and it's against that gray-white backdrop that Green Visions spends its coldest months keeping Columbia's driveways and walks passable. The company's name points toward the growing season, but its trucks are just as busy in February, working the curving streets near the lake and the flatter blocks toward the Business Loop where ice tends to linger in the shade. A good snow crew reads a yard the way a landscaper does — where the drainage pools and freezes first, which stretch of sidewalk gets no sun until noon — and that same eye for a property carries straight through from mowing season into plow season. Salt goes down before the morning commute, walkways get cleared wide enough for a stroller or a wheelchair, and driveways come back to bare pavement instead of packed snow. It's unglamorous work done early, before the rest of the block has poured its first cup of coffee.