Despite the beautiful display of morning and evening colors, the rest of yesterday was not good. A cold, strong wind blew all day, and one of Tristan’s tenants put regular dish soap in the dishwasher, and that drove the final nail into the coffin of the dishwasher that Tristan had been nursing along, hoping to get more life out of it. Since we don’t use our dishwasher, I pulled it out from under the counter, disconnected everything, loaded it in the truck and drove it Tristan’s — that was after I coaxed, or more like tricked, the truck into starting. It does not like to start in the cold. One would think pulling a dishwasher out should be a relatively simple task, but no, it wasn’t, and the beast fought me every step of the way. Fortunately, I had lots of help from Spunk and Laurie which made things a little easier.
Murphy’s Law was in top form when I started working on replacing dishwashers at Tristan’s. When I looked under the kitchen sink for the shutoff valve to the water supply, everything was wet. There were two leaky lines that had been dripping for who knows how long. After I got the replacement dishwasher hooked up, the water connection at the dishwasher was now dripping as well. The old copper compression gasket wasn’t seating properly to the new connection. I made a run to Home Depot, where I learned that I couldn’t buy compression gaskets, because we are not supposed use 3/8 copper supply lines anymore. So I had to buy a dishwasher kit with a new flexible supply line (better) but it was just barely long enough, and it included a bunch of parts I didn’t need.
Replacing the supply line to the dishwasher fixed one of the leaks under the sink, but the other one was at a plastic connector that the tech who installed a water filtration system in the house used to connect the cold water to the filter. The copper wasn’t playing well with the plastic and it hadn’t seated properly. I pulled hard on the copper tubing like I was trying to pull it out of the plastic connector. That seemed to finally seat the copper better with the plastic, because it stopped leaking; however, bumping something against the connector might make it start leaking again.
As the French say “les choses sont contre nous”, and everything seemed against us today. At least the the beautiful colors of dawn and dusk were a good reminder that things are not really all that bad.
Off Center & Not Even 
There is always something to appreciate. Beautiful message and photographs.
Thank you, Georgette! Especially in NM. Even though the wind blew all day, it was sunny, and the colors were beautiful.
right n glad it werked out fer da better! 🙂
Thanks! So am I. It was one of those situations where I couldn’t leave anything undone without shutting off water to the house, because the shutoff to the hot water would not shut off the water all the way and it leaked like crazy when it was “shut off”.
I can relate! To the home repair stuff, although not working on complex stuff like you are…
The sky has been wonderful. I really enjoy when we photograph the same things from different places (or different eyes, if we are standing at the same place 🙂 )
Gorgeous images!
Thanks, Susan! Home repair is enough of a pain on one’s own home, it’s even more of pain on someone else home.
Great photo, strong colors! The wind has been blasting in Las Vegas for two days. it may be settling down now. Winter brings many wind storms to the valley.
Thanks, John! Wind just plain wears you out.
Great photo! I am so sorry your day turned out so poorly though. You’d think that something that started that beautifully would be less fraught with trials. ❤
Thanks, Natalie! One would think!
The photos are beautiful, as usual, Timothy! I would expect nothing less!
I can relate to the fixit problems. In our old double wide, which had no shut off valves except for the sinks, I tried to put in shut off valves in line for the old stall shower. I had never done a compression fitting before. I got one right, and the other leaked, no matter what I did. I ended up with flexible wire reinforced tubing and band clamps which I had to tighten periodically. Fathers need to teach daughters how to do this stuff, not just their sons.
Thanks, Lavinia! Tristan knows how to do this stuff, she’s just overwhelmed with school, work and problem tenants right now. She’s actually better at working on cars than I am.
Good to hear you taught her! Back in my early days it was unheard of.
After a day like that, at least you were rewarded with some great color and something to offset the mini-disasters that made up the day. Beautiful photos ~ and while luck wasn’t fully on your side today, that was some great writing too!
Thanks! As I often tell people, if you survive the disaster you always have a great story to tell.
I love that, at times there is nothing better than collecting a good story or two!
Stunning!
That sky photo is amazing. Nature in its glory. Thanks.
Thanks, Inchcock! We get some really nice skies in the high desert.
It amazed me Timothy. Awesome power caught rather brilliantly I thought.
Cheers.
Your too kind sir! Thanks you very much.
Beautiful photographs! Home repairs… no thank you! I’ll grab my camera and take pictures of my brother in law fixing the problem…
Thanks, Herman! Now that is exactly the right attitude. Unfortunately, for all I’ve tried to become a retired handyman, all my efforts have failed. I still get called on to fix things around the houses and at the office.
That really is a beautiful sky. I never did like dish washers:) Have a lovely Monday.
Thanks, Janet! I like dishwashers, and once upon a time, before Energy Star compliance forced manufacturers to make dishwashers fill by time instead of volume, we had a dishwasher that worked wonderfully. It gave out after 20 years of fantastic performance and service. We went through four dishwashers in the next 8 years trying to find one that would clean dishes — we finally gave up, and this last one has just sat, used as a drying rack, for the past couple of years. We have a well and we don’t get enough water pressure for new Energy Star dishwashers to get enough water to clean the dishes.
Beautiful!
Thanks, Nandini!
At least there was some beauty and you captured it. 🙂
Thanks, Sharon!
Ugh… a cold windy day AND plumbing chores? But the photos really are gorgeous. I was fascinated with the first one. It makes me think of a primeval world… or maybe i’m just supposed to write a story about dinosaurs… 😉
Thanks, Teagan! I do not like plumbing. Whenever I do it I know why plumbers charge what they charge, and it’s hardly enough for all the trouble. The red dawn does have a primordial look to the clouds. A dinosaur story would be great!
Amaizing landscape*
Thanks!
That’s a beautiful photo, but the dishwasher ordeal doesn’t sound fun at all! We’ve had issues with our dishwasher, but we have to call someone in because my husband and plumbing do not mix well together 🙂
Thanks, Janna! Most husbands don’t mix well with plumbing, including me. But I do it, suffer greatly, and then make sure everyone else shares in my suffering.
Awesome, Timothy! Got this one for the gallery. Thank you! Christine