The herons that give this outfit its name still work the wet ground at the edge of the Dismal Swamp, standing patient in weather nobody else wants any part of. Heron's Tree Service takes much the same posture through winter, running snow across South Plainfield — plowing driveways and lots, clearing walkways and steps, salting the places where shade turns melt back into glass. Storms come up the coast here and can't decide what they are, so a night's work might mean six inches of powder or a slush that sets like concrete by four in the morning. Either way the job holds: be there early, push it back far enough that the next storm has somewhere to go, and leave a clean surface underfoot. Pulling out of a lot at dawn with black pavement in the mirror is the sort of thing that keeps a person in this line of work.