Catch of the Week

Possum in my Live Trap

The week has been spent getting caught up with a few things before I head to Lac Seul this Friday. On Saturday we ended up meeting my niece and her lovely daughter back home in Eleva, then went up to my friend Big Dave's place on the other side of Mockingbird Hill to take some casual photographs for Kaylee's senior pictures.  Big Dave has a beautiful location overlooking the valley where Eleva is situated and as well he has the old farm that was part of the original property, barn and all for an interesting setting.  We spent about 3 hours shooting then I had another 8 hours of adjusting the photographs in Adobe Photoshop, a nice program to help make digital pictures actually look good.  You see digital photography with a nice camera records everything verses film is an average of the light. The digital pictures come out a little harsh and need to be adjusted, which photoshop does an excellent job. The pictures turned out fabulous. I have done senior pictures for other friends of mine and have done quite a few weddings however that was a few years ago and most of my friends kid's are married already so it has not been as much as before.  I don't mind taking pictures but it is a lot of work by the time you adjust them all, something that one has to do.  Sunday was haircut time so neither day offered any chance to go fishing which is ok as I will get plenty of fishing in next week.  That doesn't mean however that I have been catching nothing as the other day I ended up with a possum in my live trap.  These things can be quite mean as this fellow wasn't too happy to be stuck in this cage for the day.  Never the less they can cause havoc with the bird feeders and anything else they can manage to get into.  Possums and Kangaroo's belong to the same family of animals, they are marsupials, they carry their young in a pouch during their development.  Anyway this possum was fortunate as I brought hime 6 miles away from the house and let it go into the Elm Creek Park reserve.  Notice their hands and feet, almost human like the way they can grasp onto things. Interesting, as I drove to the reserve, I dang near hit another possum on the road a mile down from the house.  It was a big one and here's hoping it doesn't find it's way back to the house!  

Boost Converter

There is a lot to do in getting the boat ready to go for the trip.  One thing that has bothered me is if I don't charge the batteries every night, often my HDS 12 will shut down when I start the outboard engine.  I know why this happens, the load of the starter just kicking causes a lot of current to flow from the battery which in turn causes the voltage to drop for a second or two depending on how long it takes to start the engine.  The proper way to fix this is to make sure the power for the depthfinder is attached directly to the battery.  Because the wiring is somewhat integrated and I do like the main power off feature I decided to add what they call a boost converter.  I discussed this last week and had one ready to go but something failed on it so I had to order another one.  It is real frustrating that most of this stuff never comes with a good owners manual and it is often up to the individual to figure out the nuances of the circuit and this one was no exception.  It stated that for lower voltage operation one needed to put a jumper across 2 terminals, but gave no indication as to their location.  Luckily I have some good guys at work and eventually we figured out which terminals to solder together.  I did a bench test with varying input voltages and set the output voltage to 14.5 Volts, it worked beautifully. I guess this week will tell the entire story of whether it was a successful endeavor or will I just need to run the wires directly to the battery!

Because I am staying for the week and because I don't know if they have internet, this post next week might be somewhat late.  I can assure you that either way It will be fun.