From the orchard hills on the western slope of Essex you can see clear across the Champlain Valley to the Adirondacks going blue in the late-September haze. Big Red Outdoor Services works the properties under that view all year, with mowing, trimming and cleanups while the grass is running, and plowing and shoveling once the valley goes white. There is a certain pride in a driveway cleared so completely you can read the pavement, and in a lawn cut so evenly the light catches every band. Storms here come in off the lake sideways and pile against a garage door by morning, so the answer is an early start and a full pass, never a path just wide enough to squeeze through. Grass in August, snow in January, the same attention either way.