Cattaraugus County keeps two calendars, and Ellicottville Landscaping works them both. From November on, the lake-effect bands push inland off Erie and stack against these ridgelines by the foot, so the job becomes a headlamp at four in the morning — plowing, shoveling out steps and decks, salting the packed ruts, opening the back-road driveways before anybody's tires reach Route 219. Then April lets go, the banks shrink to gray ribbons along the shoulders, and the same trucks come back carrying mowers for the mowing, the trimming, the spring cleanup of everything winter left behind. Autumn is leaf removal and the last cut of the year, taken low and even, the yard squared away before the hills go white again. Knowing this ground under snow is exactly what makes it easy to read in grass.