Sperling Tree Service

About Sperling Tree Service

The cottonwoods along the Big Blue River outside Stromsburg are Sperling Tree Service's summer work, and in a hard winter those same trees mark where the crew starts its snow route—the low-lying properties near the water where cold pools thick overnight and a driveway can ice over before the rest of Polk County even sees a flake. The crew knows this ground from pruning and removal work the rest of the year, which counts for something when a driveway runs close to a stand of timber that's already dropped ice-heavy limbs across it. From the river's edge the route climbs toward Stromsburg's higher ground, working outward past farmsteads that have watched this same crew clear their trees for seasons past. The grain elevator at the edge of town is usually the last landmark visible before the plow blade turns down a residential street, drifts pushed to the shoulder in long even rows. By midmorning the town sits mostly clear, the low ground quiet again under its coat of frost.