Castles in my mind...

Years and years ago, my cousin, Margie and I used have great imaginations! (I have been told that I have not outgrown this..hmmm?)  I used to stay a lot at her house during the summer and one of our favorite play places was down the lane from their house in a little clearing.  This area was hidden from most views by the large azalea bushes and a few wild huckleberry bushes.  What made this area so appealing to two little girls was an old stump.  Once a mighty tree, the stump had rotted down except for a number of spikey points.  There were hundreds of little crevasses and niches in what remained of the old stump.  Most folks would have rid their yard of such an eyesore but Margie and I were fortunate..since the stump was in an out-of-the-way area, her folks let us have our fun. "The Stump" became a castle!  To our eyes, this was the most beautiful castle in the world and it was filled with fine adventures!  Faeries, knights, dragons and wizards all lived there!  Everything that we read in our storybooks was acted out in and around our castle! We saved everything to decorate the walls of the stump castle.  Marbles, broken beads, pieces of glass and other odds and ends were all pushed into the nooks and crannies of the rotted wood.  IT WAS GORGEOUS!!!  Well, maybe not to anyone else, but to two imaginative little girls, it was magnificent!  Our "Wonderland", our escape into a fantasy world that we found in books.

Nope, this one sure does not look like a castle!

This would have to be a cottage..not a castle!

Now as I walk around the hillside, if I see a rotted stump, I wonder just what the appeal was.  Today, I prodded one old stump and several vicious-looking spiders leered at me..daring me to poke my finger just a little too close.  Centipedes, ants, beetles all roamed around on the decayed wood.  There were holes under the stump that very easily could have housed a snake or rat.  It is a wonder that we were not eaten alive while we played!

This would make a rather derelict castle!

Ok, so this would totally have to be renovated to even remotely resemble a castle!

I also noticed that the stumps were not "built like they used to be".  The ones I found today were merely rotted.  There were no spires, no dungeons, no parapet walks, no turrets..just rotted wood.  Has my imagination diminished with age?  Can no stump be a Medieval Castle ever again?  I am now on the search for the perfect castle stump.  It seems to me that I saw one down in the creekbed back during winter. I dare not venture into the creek area now for fear of stepping on a cottonmouth moccasin but perhaps during the coming winter, I will find my castle!  If it is not too much trouble, maybe I can convince Mark or Michael that I desperately need to have a stump castle in the rose garden! It would be nice if they could cut it off and carry it home for me!  Then I can secretly decorate it and relive all the wondrous storybook tales of a lifetime ago.  The search is on for the perfect stump castle!!!!....And maybe my imagination is still intact!