Deck Demolition

Darlusz the frog supervisers my
deck railing demolition

"What you do, dat noise, da pieces of wood all over. You make da mess," Darlusz Zabagaiski told me as I stood there, axe in one hand, claw hammer in the next. "You look like you murder somebody. I hope you no hurt me."

As readers of my blog at www.mattalltrades.wordpress.com know, Darlusz is the big brown frog made of plastic and resin that lives here and comments on my comings and goings. He believes he is my muse. He's nosy, but I don't mind because in the summer he consumes some of the mosquitoes that plague the boggy woods around my house.

As he always does, Darlusz was watching me work. I was starting to demolish the ugly, rotting wooden railing around the deck near the front entrance of my house.

Darlusz tottered on top of the railing I was destroying, seeing how his balance is

"Careful, I don't want you falling and breaking another foot. You still haven't recovered from that fall at Thanksgiving," I said, pointing to his bandaged front foot.

Darlusz  was looking doubtful about my work, and I could tell he needed more explanations from me.

"This will look better eventually. The railing is in the way. I'll have a garden in front of it, and we'll build  some seats. We can sit out here in the summer and enjoy the flowers. You can be my bug control guy," I said.

Darlusz brightened at that. He's been missing the big juicy insects we get out there when it gets warm.

I cut the railing demolition short though. After I knocked down about a third of it, I decided I didn't want to wrestle through the remaining snowbanks to get the rest of it. The railing demolition will have to wait.

Darlusz and I both want spring to arrive.