Tasting Snow

One of the many games we enjoyed playing was using a jump rope and wear it over our shoulder and then under our arms and pretend we were a horse while someone else drove us.

One Saturday there was a few inches of fresh snow covering everything and John, David and I decided to play horse again. Our barn was a big old spruce tree that had branches that touched the ground on three sides, the other side had an old propane tank that had been converted to an air tank to run some of the smaller machinery in Daddy's wood working shop. The hooks on the tank worked great as a place to tie our 'horse.'

On this particular day John was the farmer and David and I were the horses. I stood under the tree waiting for John and David to get back from their little run and have my turn. I was hoping they don't go too far because I wanted some fresh snow to run through before we had all our little paths made.

Once they came back John unhitched David. As I prepared to have my turn David announced how great it was to have a fresh layer of snow that he can pretend to eat hay by licking the snow on the tank and proceeded to take a lick.

Unfortunately he didn't get to enjoy the snow because his tongue stuck to the tank and he couldn't get it to loosen. He started crying as I ran to get Mom, but before she could bring a pitcher of warm water he gave a hard yank and pulled himself loose, but cried even harder when he discovered he had left a good bit of his tongue still stuck to the tank.

Mom and Daddy tried to comfort him in any way they could think of. They were worried that he might never be able to taste again and have trouble speaking. For several weeks we had to put all his food through the baby food grinder but bit by bit his tongue healed until you could no longer tell anything had happened to it.

We had learned our lesson well and never tried licking snow on any metal surface again.