I’m sure as a child you had a clubhouse somewhere. Maybe you were lucky enough to have a treehouse. For us, our clubhouses varied from under the canopy of some big ligustrums to a huge stand of philodendrons in the back corner of the yard. With an acre, there was no shortage of places to hide out as needed.

Abby and Maddy decided a few weeks ago that their in-home clubhouse just wasn’t cutting it, and for some reason Abby thought it would be really cool to have an underground clubhouse, so she started digging. This has actually been an on-again, off-again project for a few years. Basically, they dig holes, and Kim and I fill them in when we get frustrated with mowing around them.

This time, they meant business though. Abby was determined to dig a hole big enough to have multiple meeting spaces, as well as a place for pets and storage. She dug a pretty big hole, big enough to plant a 65- or 95-gallon shade tree in. And that’s when they called in reinforcements. We had already scheduled a sleepover with some family friends, and the girls had this whole list of activities that they were planning to do while the four additional kids were over. But this project took priority. With four extra sets of hands, the sky (or the ground, I guess) is the limit on what you can dig.

And dig they did. Pretty soon the hole was so deep that they couldn’t scoop the dirt out, so I showed them how to lower a bucket in and pull the dirt up. It took some teamwork, but they got the hang of it. I’ll admit I stepped in to relieve them and keep the momentum going a few times. Not even darkness falling would stop them. With headlamps and lanterns and seeming a little like a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, they continued digging and organizing the clubhouse until we told them it really was time for bed.

In the end, they managed to dig out a two-room clubhouse with a connecting passageway and plenty of little nooks and crannies for storing items. In one corner, there is a waterfall and if you look carefully, there is even a secret compartment that has challenges of some sort behind it. I wasn’t brave enough to attempt them.

I hope all of your outdoor projects are filled with as much fun as these kids had digging. Now if I could only find a way to harness some of that digging energy for making holes where I really need them, I’d be all set.