SnowByrd

About SnowByrd

Every fall the sky above the Red River fills for a few weeks with snow geese and sandhill cranes working south ahead of the cold, their calls carrying for miles over ground this flat, and by the time the last skein clears out, Fargo's first real snowfall usually is not far behind. SnowByrd times its routes to that same rhythm, running driveways and walks across the city's residential blocks as soon as a storm front clears the valley, working fast on ground with almost no rise or fall to slow a blade down. The Red River Valley was a glacial lake bed once, and it plows like one — long, even passes rather than the stop-and-start work hillier towns require. A driveway finished clean before the birds are even done crossing overhead is the kind of timing this valley runs on, and it repeats all winter, storm after storm, until the geese come back through in spring.