Multi-colored Snow

I was lucky enough to have my grand girls and their mother over to my house for a couple of days. I took a day off work because family is more important than work. I cleaned the house and prepared some Greek fava beans for lunch. Then I went outside to check out the driveway. It was a mess.  I had not shoveled the heavy wet snow. I backed my car out of the garage and drove to the street. I could feel the driveway trying to suck my car into the mud and snow but I made it out.  I drove back in the driveway and parked to one side so that my family could drive right in and park in the garage making it easier to get everyone in the house with all their stuff. Then I saw that the undercarriage of my car had left a mark in the snow. I knew her rental car was a low car too although probably not as low as mine. So I got out the shovel (AGAIN) and starting in to removing some of the snow. The snow was weird. On top was a gray layer of rain. Below that was a pinkish orange layer about an inch thick and below that was another three inches of pure white snow. I thought I was seeing things. Why was I shoveling snow that was multicolored? I took my glasses off and looked again. The snow was still striped with a pinkish/orange layer in the middle. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded shoveling. I shoveled for an hour. That was my workout for the day. I went back into the house. When I got the text message that my guests were soon to arrive I went outside again. I stood by the mailbox. When the black car with Florida license plates arrived I told her to drive in fast and confidently and pull right into the garage. Yeah, no, that is not how it went. She got stuck by the third hack berry tree.  I got some pieces of wood and carpet and chicken grit and got her unstuck. She got stuck again by my elm tree. I was leaning my back against the trunk and pushing with my legs when she got unstuck and fell on my butt in the mud.  The third time she got stuck she suggested we just leave it here for now and I agreed. We bundled everybody and everything into the house and had a lunch of venison summer sausage, fava beans, crackers, vegies, hummus and fruit. After lunch I took the grandgirls outside to go sledding while their mother could have some time to herself. I got both kids in the blue power ranger sled I had in my garage. I told them to hang on. I pulled the sled forward around the corner of the house.  The oldest grandgirl was laughing.  I turned around to look and I saw the giggling girl in the sled and the younger grandgirl laying in the snow five feet back like a turtle on it's back.  I advised them to let me know when this happened.  I put her back in the sled.  The same thing happened three more times. The younger one fell out and laid there silently in the snow while the older one giggled. Finally I started walking backwards while pulling the sled so I could see what was going on.  I walked backward and we walked through the woods with both kids staying in the sled. We walked past the chicken coop and said hello to the chickens. I checked and found 3 eggs. I showed the eggs to the girls.  The youngest one said, "Kaka."  I agreed that there was kaka on these eggs. I told the girls to stay put while I ran the three eggs into the house. When I returned they were still there. I pulled them to the hill by the compost heap. I pushed them down the hill and they were happy to be sliding. I had to walk down and pick up the youngest girl while the older one pulled the sled back up. They went down the hill at least ten times. The youngest girl took off her mittens and her hat. I stuck them in the crab apple tree for safe keeping. While I did that the oldest girl slid down by herself. We let her do this three times before they both went down together. But now we had a problem because the oldest girl kept wanting to go down by herself. That wasn't fair. Fairness in the minds of children is a very strange concept. We had come to the point of the excursion where fairness was outweighing the enjoyment. I suggested we go inside and make cookies. Well, they were all for that. We went inside and we made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from scratch using the eggs we had just collected. Children are so much fun but by the time I went to bed that night I was completely and utterly exhausted. I had learned that the snow was multi-colored because of a dust storm in Texas.