Ashburn Tree

About Ashburn Tree

Winter arrives here as an argument: rain at dusk, sleet by ten, and by two in the morning a glaze on everything from Ashburn Road out to the newest cul-de-sac. Ashburn Tree keeps watch on those nights, running the plow and the spreader while the willow oaks tick and creak overhead. The list is short and the standard is not — driveways opened, walkways cut clean to the pavement, salt laid down ahead of the refreeze that always follows a Piedmont thaw. There is a particular satisfaction in the last pass at first light, when the street has gone black again and the yards are still white. Nobody sees the hours it took, which is more or less the point.