Landscaped

About Landscaped

First flakes usually find Silver Spring in early December — small, dry, not sticking, a rehearsal for what January has in mind. Landscaped is ready by then, plow mounted, salt staged, routes set across East Hempfield Township. The work is snow removal, plain and complete: driveways opened, sidewalks taken down to the concrete, entryways treated so nobody meets ice on the way to the car. Township storms often start as rain and finish as something meaner, which makes the timing of that first pass its own kind of skill. When the sky clears and the driveways are already black, the morning belongs to the people who live there.