Well, it’s been a summer. I have once again failed at keeping up on posting a weekly update. Hopefully, with the restarting of school, I can return to regular updates.

In the meantime, here is a quick overview of the summer.

Kayaking

I only got out a couple of times to kayak this year. In one trip, I watched some of the Sturgeon jumping on the Kennebec River. It is an amazing sight.

That trip was cut somewhat short as while attempting to pull Hazel back into the kayak, a nice little wave hit, and I capsized.

This led to the realization that I was not fully prepared with kayak re-entry procedures.

Bird Removal

Part 1

While dog sitting for my eldest daughter, I arrived to find a robin hanging out in the attached porch area. It took a good bit of broom work, the robin kept flying up to the ceiling fan, but the robin was eventually freed.

Part 2

A hummingbird decided to enter our mudroom. It is interesting how incredibly still they can be. Anyway, a bit of collaboration between my wife and I, and one hummingbird was returned safely to the wild.

Kitchen

Painting

The kitchen is now mostly painted (still a bit of touch up work to do). The difference is phenomenal. The kitchen looks so much better.

Floor

Tiling the floor turned into quite the project. A friend, Joe, and I ripped out the tile to see if the floor below was redeemable to be refinished. It turned out not to be a good path forward.

So, I had the kitchen measured to have someone else tile. Originally, I was going to do the tile, but there’s a story. Anyway, the measuring guy “forgot” to say that the floor really needed to be leveled. The tile company said to get a general contractor to level the floor. Now, to be fair, I’m not really looking for the floor to be level, just not quite as far off level as it currently is. For example, when we bought a cabinet that was about four feet wide, it sloped down 3/4 of inch over those four feet. Anyway, Joe and I went to work to make the floor flat and closer to level. It was quite the job, but I’m happy to report that the floor is now flat and close to level. It took five sheets of subfloor and about ten bags of leveling cement. Oh, and about 500 screws. Anyway, it looks good. Hopefully, we can get on the tile schedule soon.

Oh, redoing the floor meant a few weeks of applicances out of the kitchen. And, of course, we had to grind one section down, so dust is now present throughout the entire house.