I was out raking some more of the oak leaves that keep falling like rain upon our yard. This seems to be a never-ending chore but I do believe I might finally be making headway. Son was crawling around under the Little Bayou House with a sprayer. It was that fine time of year again where we have to exterminate creepy-crawly things that insist on inhabiting the underparts of the house. Termites, fleas, spiders, roaches...anything that ventures underneath the floor will meet its death and I have no qualms about that. Those types of critters are not on my "like" list.
Michael was only under the house for a short while when I heard..."Uh, Mom?" Ok, so that usually is not something I wish to hear coming from him. That usually means that he has discovered a problem. I stuck my head under the house just in time to see him wiggle his way toward me. "Can you get me a flashlight.....and maybe your camera?" Ok, I really did not like where this was going! When I questioned him about his need for the camera, he just looked at me and grinned. "I did not know we had a cellar." What a find! After all of these many, many years in the Little Bayou House, I just now discovered that we have a root cellar!
I rushed to get his light and my camera. I was a bit excited to find that he had uncovered something so interesting. Why! What must be hidden in a long-lost cellar! Perhaps treasures! Yes, indeed! Directly beneath the kitchen sits the newly unearthed vault. Why have I not know about this before today? Why did we not discover our unique "basement" earlier? These, my friends, are questions that took a while to answer.
Light and camera in hand, he squirmed his way back under the house. "Strange looking cellar." was all I heard from him for a good five minutes. Then, the camera is poked back out from under the house. I eagerly viewed the pictures he took. Uh, oh. That sure does not look like a cellar to me. Michael grinned at me and muttered something about not wanting to store foodstuffs in that hole. Me, either! No way! My grand idea of a treasure laden cellar came crashing down around me. THIS was no cellar! This...this was some old septic tank! This was a cesspool! Ugh! Ugh!! To think we have been living directly over an old cesspool was sort of unnerving. Well, now. I am sure glad that the thing had caved in before Son scooted himself across it! Even though the thing was nigh on a half century old and dried, falling into any hole about eight feet deep would not have been fun.
I figured that the folks who lived here before Mark and I built the Little Bayou House must have used this hole as their septic tank. We just never knew it was there. Perhaps when Hurricane Katrina shoved tons of saltwater up under our house, the metal casing rusted and caused the thing to cave in upon itself these many years later. Now there is just this huge, gaping hole. What else am I going to find on this hill? Things are strange at times! Cellar! Bah! Michael, April Fool's Day has already passed! Quit teasing your old mom!
