Orford holds its weather in the valley — a July thunderhead builds behind Sunday Mountain, breaks over Jacob's Brook, and by evening the whole town smells like cut grass and rain. Gray's Property Maintenance keeps lawns through that green stretch, mowing and trimming and hauling off the windfall a storm leaves behind, then coming back in October for the leaves. When the valley goes white the plow turns out along Route 25A and the pond roads, plowing and sanding the hills that glaze over first. A driveway cleared to the pavement is a small thing until you are the one who has to leave at five in the morning. That is the plain idea behind all of it: keep the ground under a house usable, whatever the sky has decided.