The Coral Surprise

I suppose it is a coincidence that I was thinking today, with all this activity, shit flying off the roof, people walking around the house, etc., that any snakes near the house would vacate during the roofing installation.

Leave it to a Texas coral snake to prove me wrong.

The roofers left about 7:00 tonight and txrad, true to form, could hardly wait to get up on the roof and inspect things. He grabbed the ladder, I had my camera, and as he was about to open the gate into the back yard I heard him say ***snake. I thought he said garter snake.

I looked at it and thought, "my, that's a pretty colorful garter snake."

I asked him, "WHAT kind of snake?"

He said, "coral."

I looked at it and my brain began processing the old lines about "red on black, won't strike back, red on yellow harms a fellow."

Then I had to look closely.

The nasty fucker just inched along the fence, and I was praying he didn't go under it because once in the back yard, I'd have cat vs. snake to deal with.

I kept an eye on it while txrad was getting on the roof. It eventually moved onto the driveway and I was hoping it was going to the neighbor's house. Nope. He was working his way toward the garage. I wasn't having that so I got it on a different trajectory out into the yard.

He went into some grass and some of the tree cuttings from last week. I'll have to be careful as I'm clearing those out this weekend although I'm sure he'll be well away from that pile by then. I was tempted to kill it but he wasn't being aggressive to me, so I returned the favor. I just hope there's not a lot of relatives hanging around. Sooner or later I'd have to fetch my hoe.

Meanwhile, as I was tracking snake movements, txrad was showing off our new roof. I specifically wanted to get a photo of him up there just to make Nicole nervous.

The lesbians' blue heeler from next door thought txrad was being silly. She's a silly dog and as I approached she barked and ran away.

I think the roofing job is excellent and I am so pleased with the results.

I was really hoping they'd get the skylights replaced but they left and I will have to inquire about why they didn't replace those with the new ones we bought. The supervisor also didn't show up this evening to collect his thou$ands. I'm sure he'll be here tomorrow.

There's one skylight over each bathroom and I waited all day to take a shower because I thought they'd replace those first before they completed the roof. Finally this afternoon I decided I had to take a shower since I needed to go out and purchase the celebratory tequila.

While the skylight isn't directly over the shower or the toilet, I would be visible emerging from either so it was a rather awkward day. To be honest, and I hope this isn't too much information, I decided I needed to move my bowels while the guys on the roof were working directly over the bathroom.

I turned on the ventilation fan out of habit, and realized that might not earn me any brownie points with the guys upstairs so I shut it off. Then I jumped in the shower and began wondering: what if I'm in the shower and they pop off the old skylight and one of the guys accidentally falls into the bathroom, or if they see me getting out of the shower?

That was enough to cause me to cut the shower short, no hair washing, just a quick rinse and out of there.

Ahhh, life at the kona ranch. You'd have to be here to fully understand what it's like.