When a storm finally lets go around four in the morning, East Windsor goes as quiet as it ever gets — hedgerows loaded, field edges rounded off, nothing moving on Conover Road. Timberwolf Tree Service is out in it before the light, plowing driveways down to the pavement and cutting a clean shoulder so the melt has somewhere to run. Walks and steps get shoveled and salted, including the stretch to the mailbox that everyone forgets until they need it. Snow sits heavy under the oaks along the older lanes, and it takes patience to leave a yard looking opened rather than gouged. The first tire tracks of the morning belong to the truck; the second set belongs to whoever lives there, leaving on time.