Who needs a trip to the bowling alley when you can make one from stuff you find on the back porch?

Mr. Third Grader and the neighbor kids got out of the pool one afternoon and were drying off before I'd let them into the house.  Then they got busy and forgot that they wanted to come in!

Using some toys and other items they found on the porch, they put their heads together and constructed their very own mini-bowling alley.  The light sabers, I believe, are the arrows you'd see in the near part of the bowling lane.  Off in the distance are the "pins," made of Tinker toys, and an old softball was used as a bowling ball.  The furniture and trash basket are there to keep the bowling ball from getting away, as this lane does not boast an automatic ball return.

Another afternoon I found them out there, rolling tennis balls along an eight-foot 1-by-4 that was in the porch.  They set the board up on a slope and wanted to see how far the tennis balls would roll.

The whole thing got dismantled late last week, though, when a chipmunk found its way in through the open porch door.  Five teenage boys were moving furniture and wielding light sabers, while the girls were shrieking and I was advising the boys not to kill chipmunks on my porch.  When one kid told me that the chipmunks were eating his parents' vegetable garden and that one less chipmunk would increase my chances of getting fresh zucchini this summer, I informed him that I'd take my chances.  "Chipmunks are cuter than zucchini, so don't kill it."

After the boys put down the light sabers, the terrified rodent found his way out of the porch and things calmed down.  I definitely liked the bowling alley a lot better.

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