Oenothera sp.; looks like Oenothera albicaulis or similar.

Creek side, I am sure : ) Rat snakes can show defensive behaviors, but they rarely do. They make great snakes to show people because they tend to be really laid back. All snakes can display those behaviors. Hognose snakes flatten their heads out and tail rattle right before they play dead. We moved a copperhead this weekend that did the tail rattle. We explained that we were sorry to disturb its nap but we needed to move the woodpile. Too bad snakes don't have ears - we might have been forgiven, but no it stuck its tongue out at us and headed into the woods ; ) King snakes are great too (they are one of my favorites) but they have a more smoothly rounded snout, actually a rounder body too - they are more tube like IYKWIM? and a glossy sheen to their scales.

Well, here we are a year later and zero progress has been made at the house. The house continues to decline. If you look in the windows you can see the ceiling hanging down. And it's easy to look in because some of the windows are gone now. The city posted a notice yesterday requiring them to cut the grass within 10 days. HA!! Some weeds are chest high on me right now. What really ticks me off is how great those Ixora look! LOL In spite of everything wrong at this house, these Ixora have more red flowers than any I have see in the neighborhood! And the front walk is about swallowed up by weeds now, too. Charlie and I did take a chain saw to the back yard and got rid of the fallen tree and cut back a few things. You could barely see the difference. The realtor told me to go ahead and take the Yucca plants. It seems the bank is considering knocking down the house and selling the lot. So I'll have the plants if there is ever someone over there to offer one to. I have a question about the "Yucca" plant. I am wondering if this is actually a Yucca or if it is perhaps a Dracaena. It won't make any difference in how I care for it, but I am curious. Here is a cross section of one stem, if that helps.

Thanks for asking. Update: My Dad bought his cute new townhouse to downsize into. Over the next 6 weeks, we helped my Dad completely purge and prepare his house (selling, donating, and moving things to his new house), handle some repairs, carpet cleaning, painting, etc to get it ready to go on the market. The house was outdated early 90's style, but in good repair bc he always fixed things as he went along. There was almost no deferred maintenance; but still a list of things we needed to do to get it ready. We didn't touch her room, but the entire rest of the house was emptying out quickly. The first week of this 6-week process, I printed out the eviction paperwork from the local justice court and brought it over to show the squatter. I explained what was going to happen, the judgement, the sheriff coming, etc. We kept on going with the purging, cleaning, etc. We all live locally, so all the siblings and spouses (8 adults) were stopping by all the time to help, and to reinforce the "move out" message to the squatter. SIL was an especially effective communicator, and squatter finally agreed to move out by Friday of the second week. And she did! We never had to file the eviction papers, but printing them out and showing her what was going to happen made her see that this train was on the move. I told my Dad to change the locks, but it turns out he had never given her a key, just a garage door opener, which he took back, so that was good. Along the way, we did find out some sketchy stuff about her; she has squatted and scammed others before. She tried, but was never able to find out my Dad's new address, my address, or any of my other siblings last names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. She sure tried though! One day I brought a meal over for my Dad and she asked me to email the recipe to her. Another time, she offered to drop something by my sister's house, just give me your address. Those are just 2 examples of many where she tried to get personal info on us. It's pretty easy to get that kind of info online, but she doesn't have a computer, and doesn't seem sharp enough to do that kind of research. With the FIRST showing, my Dad got a full-price offer, and he just closed a couple of weeks ago. I have another thread about all this stupid stuff the realtor told him to do to the house (over $100K worth of updates; so dumb). With moving costs, repairs, cleaning, painting, hiring handy a person to help haul things to charity and dump, minor landscape spruce-up, etc he spent less than $7K vs $100K realtor wanted him to do to make her job easier! Anyway, it's finally over and my Dad is happily settled in his new place. He's on vacation right now, and we are having a big house-warming party for him when he gets back.