It’s a snow day in middle Tennessee. One of those rare, single digits, howling wind, bundle up because the snow is deeper than your boots days. We don’t get a lot of those, so I try to appreciate them when they come. When I wore a younger mans clothes, this usually meant putting the plastic bags from loaves of bread over my socks before putting my boots on to go sledding, usually being pulled behind the tractor by my grandfather. What can I say, the hills on our farm are more of the gentle, rolling variety than the exciting toboggan run style. We would usually follow that up with “skating” on one of the ponds before breaking the ice so the cattle could get a drink and making sure all the stock had plenty of hay. Somehow, he would hide the work in the fun in the same way that he would hide life lessons in that work. As cold as it would be out there, we knew that when we got back to the house grandma would have hot chocolate waiting for us on the stove and that still tastes like home to me. So, peel off those wet shoes, being careful to not tear your bread bag liners, as we stand in mostly dry socks and make a mug of Spirited Oaxacan Hot Chocolate.
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