The Otter Kill runs dark under the back roads of Hamptonburgh long before anyone is awake to see it, and that is the hour this crew keeps in winter. Plows push driveways and lots open, walks get cleared and treated, and the first car of the morning rolls out onto bare pavement without a second thought. Come the green months the same trucks carry mowers, and the work turns to weekly cutting, trimmed fencelines and edges cut clean enough to run a finger along. Spring and fall cleanups clear what the wind leaves behind in a town of hedgerows and open field. It is plain outdoor work, kept up all the way round the calendar, in one corner of Orange County they know by heart.