West of Elmer the fields run out for miles, and when a storm crosses Salem County the snow does not so much fall as travel. Melnyk's Tree Service is out in it — plowing lanes and driveways, opening the walk, laying salt where the wind has scoured a path down to bare ice. Then the year turns and those same properties want mowing, trimming and cleanups, from the first warm rain until the grass quits in October. There is a satisfaction in a farm lane opened at four in the morning that is hard to explain to anyone still asleep. By August it is the smell of cut grass instead, which is its own kind of payment.