When it rains, it pours, but not the weather related Rain rather the occurrence of equipment failures on the estate.  I've been running constantly repairing broken equipment and have had little time for blogging or anything else.

First it was the pool cover.  The cover is vital to keeping pool clean and during cooler weather keeping the temperature up.  But the UV out here is hard on any plastic material and the pool cover finally gave up the ghost.  A new replacement cover arrived and I've spent time getting it installed.  A 20' by 40' pool cover weighs about 100 lbs. and it took some time to maneuver it down to the pool and get it into place.  I'm on the last bit of the installation just need to get the ropes connected to the hydraulic system.

The next item was the dishwasher.  The motor bearings have been making noise and cleaning and lubricating only temporarily resolved the problem so a replacement was ordered.  Of course the connections to the water supply were not the same requiring switching the the old inlet valve with the one on the new dishwasher to allow installation.

Then the air conditioning went out while guests were in residence.  It turns out a capacitor went bad on one unit and half the main house was warm.  Fortunately the other heat pump helped maintain a reasonable indoor temperature but with 20 guests it was pushed to its' limits.  I got the system fixed and back running within 24 hours which made the guests happy.

Of course then the Direct TV system went on the fritz in 2 buildings.  A combination of tree growth blocking signal solved the problem in one building while understanding how unattended toddlers like to push buttons on equipment allowed me to finally figure out the other problem.

Finally the owners wife requested a garden planting bed for herbs and peppers.  Because of poor soil from erosion I tasked an old pallet for a new raised planting bed.  Wrapped in black plastic it is filled with dirt from the river bottom and should provide a useful planting area for raising young plants.

Just to show that it has not been all repair work while I'm running around making the place inviting for guests I still managed to get a couple of interesting cloud images.  The Monsoon is starting and the skies are generating nice cloudscapes some of which were extremely picturesque.