A small-time writer's skirmish with a bull frog

 There is a little group of bull frogs who wallop in the small street drain. They retire for the night under a culvert nearby. They are too big for the rat snakes hiding in the bushes a few yards away. The bull frogs look like miniature hippos walloping in muddy waters. They are very confident even while face-to-face with the rat snakes. One day I saw a poor rat snake helplessly staring at the mud-wallopers. They even turned their backs to it. ‘We are too big for you!’ they seemed to take a jibe at it. Then one of them got out to scout our yard for a suitable winter hideout. It showed the same attitude to me that it flaunts in the face of the rat snakes. I applied water cannon to shoo it away but it stayed adamant and turned my policing act into a bathing with clean water. I stomped my feet to shake the ground around it to scare it. It but stood solid. A very brave one indeed. I then used a stick to prod at its bottom. It got angry and stood on its front legs to increase its size. ‘Hey, I’m bigger than you!’ it meant to say. Then I give a small, gentle hit at its bum and there it galloped away croaking obscenities.