Lawn Ranger

About Lawn Ranger

The Red River Valley around Casselton is about as flat as ground gets, old Bonanza farmland stretching to a horizon broken only by grain elevators and the rail line that made this town a shipping point a century ago, and Lawn Ranger patrols that same open ground once winter takes over from the growing season. There's nowhere for a storm to hide out here — you can watch weather roll in from Fargo's direction a good half hour before it arrives — which gives the crew a head start most towns don't get. Driveways, walkways, and small commercial lots along the old rail-town Main Street all get the same treatment, cleared and re-cleared as wind off the valley floor pushes snow back across roads that were bare an hour before. The valley's soil is known for what it grows in summer, but in January it's just wide open exposure, nothing to break the wind between here and the Sheyenne. A cleared drive out here doesn't stay that way long, so the rounds just keep running.