Four in the morning, radio low, wipers going: the snow rides in off the west and settles over the whole Route 17 corridor at once. Southern Tier Snow Plowing runs straight into it — plowing, driveway and parking lot clearing, walkway shoveling, salting and ice management, and repeat passes for as long as a storm keeps stacking. This stretch of the state measures winter in feet rather than inches, and the road to town is only ever as open as the driveway feeding it. There is genuine pride in a cleared lot at first light, with nobody the wiser about the hours behind it. That is the job: the storm happened, and the morning goes on anyway.