I’m Being a He-Man!

Darlusz Zabagaiski, the Polish frog that lives here and always keeps an eye on me, shook his head and rolled his eyes as I swung the sledgehammer down onto the pavement.

Darlusz the Polish frog inspects the pavement I broke up today with a sledgehammer.

“What, you tink you big he-man,?” he said, as I hammered away, breaking up the asphalt.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said, slamming the sledgehammer down on the pavement again.

“Why you do dat anyway,?” he asked.

The answer is, I’m continuing to pick away at the stone wall I’m building in front of my house. A section of the wall I’m planning goes over a corner of my driveway, so I’m battering the pavement away. I can use the chunks as loose rubble that I’ll put in back of the stone wall, to facilitate drainage.

The immense rock I dug up this spring at the bottom of my lawn, seen here in early April.

“I guess you stay strong, you keep doing dat,” Darlusz admitted.

“Yup, a free gym membership,” I replied.

Finished for the day with the pavement, I turned my attention to an immense rock. It had originally been at the bottom of the hill on my property. It was sticking up out of the lawn, getting in the way of the lawnmower. So I dug it up, finding it was much bigger than I’d expected.

Darlusz inspects the big rock Thursday morning, now that it's in place along the base of the stone wall I'm building.

I’m guessing it weighed at least 300 pounds. No way was I going to carry that.

Since spring, whenever I had a minute, I’d roll the stone up the hill a few feet toward the stone wall. Darlusz liked that pattern because the stone would sit in one spot for maybe a week, long enough for insects to collect under it. When I finally moved it, Darlusz always had a nice snack.

This went on for a long time. I had to move the stone about half the length of a football field.

Today, finally, I finished. I rolled the stone into the position along the stone wall where I always wanted it.

Once the rock was in place, Darlusz hopped up on top of it for a closer look, and to lap up one last unfortunate ant that was trying to make an escape.

“You make me tired jus’ watching you move dat ting,” he said.

“And my back is all the stronger because of it,” I replied.

The job done, I was tempted, but resisted, the impulse to do a bodybuilder’s double bicep pose, and let out a big he-man yell.

Darlusz thanked me for restraining myself. As did the neighbors, I’m sure.