Redneck Kids' Clubhouse

My son went to a birthday party a couple weeks ago, and the
kids started putting sticks and leaves on top of some big rocks
to make a clubhouse. When he came home, he asked his dad
to bring him some big rocks up from the creek to make a club-
house. Of course that would be too much work, so his dad
told him he knew just the place. I didn't think any more about
it, and both boys and their dad went out to play.

They came back in about an hour later, all excited. "Dad
found us this great place for our clubhouse! Come look!"
So I went outside, about 50 yards from our front porch,
and saw the "clubhouse." It was one of our sinkholes.

Oh, we have two sinkholes, a large one and a small one.
This was the small one, but still a sinkhole. Now I'm not
sure if you know what a sinkhole is, but in this area it is
where the underground water has eroded away the rock
and left an opening between the surface of the earth and
the underground water table. In other words, it is like a
cave with the top eroded away. Sometimes there is water
in the bottom, sometimes not. In our big sinkhole, you can
drop a rock and eventually hear it splash. It is about 50
yards past the small sinkhole.

I, of course, had a few words to say about this new clubhouse.
Number one being that it isn't safe to play in a sinkhole. My
husband said I was overreacting: "It has a dirt floor." Yeah,
for now. How do we know it is finished collapsing? Maybe
that is just the roof that fell in and got stuck, and it's going to
collapse again.

The kids were happy as could be. They have a cool clubhouse.
They had covered the top with sticks. So it kind of looks like
some primitive trap that unsuspecting animals fall into and land on
pointy sticks. I do not like this idea of using a sinkhole for a
clubhouse.

"What am I going to do when one of them falls through to the
water and gets washed along in that underground river? I can't
save him, and by the time I call for help he'll be miles away."

My husband still thinks I'm overreacting. My mother says to
dress them in life jackets and tie a rope on them before they
go out to play. Now that's a good idea.