R & J Buckettruck Tree Services

About R & J Buckettruck Tree Services

Oronogo's ground still remembers the lead and zinc that came out of it a century ago — the old circle mine pit sits full of blue water at the edge of town, and the chat piles rise like low hills across otherwise flat prairie. R & J Buckettruck Tree Services works that same open ground in winter, where wind off the plains can pile snow against a chat bank faster than it falls straight down, leaving some driveways buried on one side and bare on the other. The bucket truck that trims limbs the rest of the year sits idle those mornings while the crew runs plows instead, clearing the long straight roads that connect Oronogo's scattered houses toward Webb City and Joplin. Driveways get scraped to the gravel, walks get shoveled to the door, and by midmorning the mine pit's blue water is about the only color left against all that white. It's a quiet, particular kind of clearing, suited to a town built on what used to lie underground.