Gideon Tree and Plow

About Gideon Tree and Plow

North of Northampton the ground climbs and Blue Mountain stands across the horizon, and the squalls that come over that ridge can drop three inches on the borough while the valley south of town stays merely gray. Gideon Tree and Plow watches that side of the sky, because a mountain storm gives you less warning and finishes faster than the forecast suggests. Plowing runs through the night: driveways opened, aprons cut back at the street so the municipal plow doesn't seal them shut again, walkways shoveled to the door. Salt goes down on the pitch of a hillside drive where a car would otherwise slide before it ever reached the road. When the ridge finally lightens toward morning, the town is moving again — which is the entire ambition of the job.