Tree Stump Adventures

On Monday two of our big pine trees on the front corner of our hard fell down in a wind and deluge.  On Tuesday Mr. TOF looked at me with glee and asked if he could take a shovel over to the hole next to the roots and dig.  “Dig away!  Dig to your hearts content!” we said. He was thrilled because he’s always wanting to dig holes in the yard and his dad is always telling him not to dig holes in the yard.   He spent the afternoon digging tunnels. He had plans for a network of tunnels through the whole front yard.  Then he decided to dig a deep hole to China.

It didn’t take long before there was a continent of neighborhood kids in the corner of the yard, climbing on the roots.  Over the past few days they’ve dragged all sorts of junk to that corner of the yard:  outdoor pillows, life jackets, broken plastic containers, shovels, PVC pipes, rakes, baseball bats, squirt guns.  The neighborhood crew has been in mud up to their knees, and they’ve turned the roots and tree stumps into a ship of some sort or another, and the very imaginative play I listen to out my windows involves “crews” that work on the deck digging bigger holes all the time.

They are begging us to leave the tree stumps all summer. They say “It’s better than a playground!  We don’t even need a slide!”   I’m relishing in the creative play.  I’m delighted that they are entertaining themselves for hours on end with mud and tree roots.