Darlusz the Frog Embraces Change

Darlusz, the Polish frog that lives with us in St. Albans, has been out of sight, almost out of mind lately.

There's so many black flies that hatched from the record spring rains we've had that he's been gone getting fat and happy munching on them.

But he emerged yesterday as home improvements reached another crescendo at our place, and Darlusz came out to inspect the changes.

Darlusz the frog inspects the great new deck Jeff
installed at my house.

"Dis new deck, is wspaniate," using the Polish word for wonderful. "But da rotten board on da old deck. It had lot of doz tasty bugs. Dis new cedar board, no bugs. What, you make me go hungry,?"

I swatted at the thick cloud of black flies around my head for effect. "Darlusz, um, I don't think there's a bug shortage. Besides, I haven't thrown out the old boards yet. They're stored over there, behind the house, next to the perennials I'm going to plant".



The deck in question is at the front of the house was a hazard. Jeff worked his butt off the past few days ripping out the old boards and putting in the cedar planks. Between that, the painting Jeff did on the shed, and all these other projects he's doing, I feel like the lucky recipient of a new house on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"

Darlusz the frog inspects perennials I'm planting near the new
deck. Wreckage of the old deck is in the background.

Darlusz interrupted those thoughts. "Deese plants day smell nice and day not even blooming much yet. What you do with those,?" he asked while sniffing around the collection of perennials I had purchased at Claussen's, a Colchester, Vermont plant nursery that's bursting at the seams with plants.


"Now that the deck is fixed and the stone wall is mostly built, it's time to plant some flower. Make the place look like a real house," I said.

"Day nize," Darlusz said. "See, you like color too, I see. You got da daffodils blooming all over da place. Now deeze. I like."

Darlusz searches for tasty insects to eat in the truckload
of rich topsoil I bought for the new perennials.

I looked at Darlusz sternly and said. "I'm glad you like them. I do, too. But be warned: A lot of these plants attract butterflies, honey bees and hummingbirds. You will NOT touch any of those insects and little birds That's part of the reason I'm planting these. I like to look at them, and I like to see what little bits of wildlife they atrract," I told the frog.

Darlusz helps guide where to plant perennials near the new deck.

"But I get hungry," Darlusz whine. "But OK, I stay away. I search elsewhere for da bugs," he said.

"Here, I'll help," I said waving a towel around my head to drive the approximately 1,378, 276,322 black flies swarming around my head toward Darlusz.

Darlusz took a deep, satisfying gulp of flies. "You goud man," he said, between burps.