my son and i almost moved but....

My son found a hole he wanted to explore the other day. After I saw it, we thought it might be fun to go live in the hole, but there were a few minor things to deal with before we could do that.

The hole sits on a small hill overlooking the inlet of a nearby lake. There are dilapidated cattails along the lake shore, waiting for spring to breath fresh life into their weary veins. A small clump of trees house a gazillion noisy, happy little birds who chirp continually, regardless of the weather. The inlet itself is like the bottom of a bowl; 16 houses sit up around the edge of the "bowl", looking down at the water and across at each other.

There is one side of the bowl that sits empty and alone; grass grows on that side of the hill, but there are no houses or trees to interrupt the landscape. That is where our hole lives.

I have no idea how my son found the hole. It's about as big around as a 50 cent piece. But, that is one of the miracles of being a child; they are never anxious to move on, keep walking, get home...children take time to notice tiny things and in this instance, I'm so glad I didn't hurry him along. I've never seen a more inviting hole.

At first I thought it was a crawdad hole, but then I realized it couldn't be. Crawdads hibernate and in the spring their holes are surrounded by a mound of fresh mud that has to be pushed out of the way so they can get out. There was no mud near this hole. Then I thought, a snake hole? Ewww. It's too pretty for that.

So, we have no idea who lives there, but no matter who it is, we wanted to ask them to vacate the property so we could move in. Why? What's so appealing about this hole? Well, for one thing, the location. It sits on a hill, overlooking the inlet of a lake. The birds add to the charm, and the hole faces west. Every evening we'd be able to sit in our minuscule little lawn chairs and watch the sunset. The most appealing part of the whole thing is the carpet. The edges of the hole are covered in a thick, soft, luscious green moss that grows down, down, down, deep into the ground. We knew if we could only be small enough to crawl deep into the moss, it would be better than snuggling on a water bed or having a massage; it would surround our cold bodies and comfort and warm us like nothing else could.

There was just one other thing to take care of before we could move in. (Size being the first issue)

When we stooped down and looked deep into the hole, we noticed a spider web. It was about 2" down the entrance and even though a spider wove it, it was lovely. The web was covered in tiny dew drops-it looked like a chain of diamonds tangled across the entrance of a cave. We imagined we were little explorers armed with ropes and picks and...and....wait. If we're small enough to fit into that hole, and a spider built a web completely across it, that means he's bigger than we are. What does one do with a spider that big? After a bit of pondering, we decided it was maybe best to leave well enough alone and move along. Spider slaying was not on our to-do list that day and maybe, someday, we'll find a bigger hole, maybe a hobbit hole, we can move into.