Four in the morning in January, and Salina is all blue shadow and squeaking cold underfoot. NRN Property Services is already moving by then, plowing lots open, scraping walkways down to bare surface and treating the ice before the first cars turn in. This town sits where the lake bands like to unload, so the difference between a passable entrance and a treacherous one comes down to who was out early. By sunrise the piles are set back off the corners and the pavement looks like an ordinary day. That is the whole aim of winter work: making a hard morning look like nothing happened.