Windows and Snakes

I attempted to cut the grass at my house Wednesday and got slammed by a severe storm.  It rained so hard I couldn’t load my equipment in my car, so I found things to do inside.  About an hour into the storms water starts dripping from the ceiling in my guest bedroom.  I still have one piece of drywall in the ceiling to install after the master tub is finally connected, so nothing impeded the water.  I go upstairs to discover water pouring through the boarded up window in the shower and through the gaps of the window next to it.  That window never closed fully and the shower window should have been boarded from the outside.

The windows had actually arrived on Tuesday, but due to the extreme high temps I told my installer to hold off for a cooler day.  Well that was thrown out the door.  Mr. Jackson got a panic call and request to come the next day to get at least those two windows replaced.  He thankfully altered his schedule and arrived the next morning.  I have never lived in a house that had windows in the bathroom.  I have five in this room.  The trio on the side of the house are in the shower or in front of the tub.  I decided to make the two small windows picture windows, full glass non-functioning.  They are obscure (no peep shows) and tempered.  Only the shower window was required to be tempered, but I decided to make them all that way.  The center window is normal double-hung, with obscure and tempered bottom pane.  The windows in the front dormer and water closet will be double-hung and bottom obscure, but not tempered.

Once again the vision I had is materializing.  I love the way these windows look and can’t wait to see the tile around them.

Now for the snakes.  While Mr. Jackson installed the windows I resumed my grass cutting.  During demo my guys were cleaning up debris from the backyard and found several snakes, one over 3′ long.  I thought, once I had all the trees cut down their hiding places would be gone.  WRONG.  There is an unpaved, city alley behind my house that stays overgrown with weeds.  I only cut my yard every two weeks because the city only collects yard waste that often, so my backyard gets pretty long too as it’s mostly weeds that grow despite lack of rain.  I was cutting the yard as low as possible in the beginning, so I have mowed and killed a snake unintentionally; I didn’t see it.

I had my yard treated for weeds, so I now cut it at a high setting.  Once again I mowed over a snake, but this time the blade wasn’t low to kill it.  That 2′ sucker coiled up at me and I had to tilt the lawn mower up in defense.  It slithered away when I dropped the lawn mower on it.  I HATE SNAKES!!!  So if anyone has any suggestions for getting rid of snakes, permanently, I’m eager to try anything.  My poor dogs are not going to know what to do if they encounter one and I’m still hopeful to have city chickens one day.  I’m afraid the snakes will eat my eggs.