Pickleville Philosophy

By  Jim Stone

It’s been a crazy week it rained so hard that there were huge landslides that covered most of the roads. Us dogs are stranded for a while. Alaska is such an amazing show of Mother Nature. She’s very beautiful but can unleash some pretty wild weather conditions. Most days I worry more about bears and wolves but now landslides and mice.  Yup mice are a big threat in the wilderness. I think they’re bionic. They can jump 3 feet in the air, out run an eagle and would win a game of hide and go seek every time.  They invaded my truck one late night.   I could hear them under the hood so I got a broom handle and tried to spear them. I was doing pretty good till my flashlight went out.

The next day my whole computer system was out.  It would take 2 ferry boats to ship the truck to a place that could fix it and way too expensive for my budget. Really all I need is for the truck to run and the heater working because e us dogs are living in the truck through the winter on an island in the middle of Alaska. I think this has been one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life it’s been such a wild adventure. Maybe it's a midlife crisis.

So I made some mouse traps for under the hood and in the bed of the truck, it was mouse after mouse I stopped counting how many there were. It was bizarre; the little mice could jump on the bumper then off the tailgate right into the back of my truck.

One dark night I was reading the owner’s manual trying to figure out how to fix the truck.  I started pushing buttons, checking fuses and unhooked the battery. Pretty much everything the book suggested.

Nothing worked  I’ve got OnStar in the truck, normally when you push the button a nice person comes on the radio to help, but that didn't work either. So I pushed another button, it flickered a little bit but still nothing.  So I crawled in my sleeping bag and was just about asleep. 

About an hour later I heard sirens and woke up to flashing red and blue lights with search lights lighting up the whole truck. 

I had pushed the SOS button witch goes to a satellite than dispatches the search and rescue and police department. I was in the middle of nowhere on a logging road surrounded by wilderness and they found me. It was freaking crazy.  The police were so nice; I had two guns on my dashboard that they saw. Their reply was “we are just glad you’re ok and you've got a gun just in case you need it.

One of the policemen invited us dogs over for a hot meal and gave us a phone number if we ever needed something.  If they couldn't have gotten to where we were by truck there would have been a Coast Guard helicopter in flight to help us. It made me feel a lot safer to know that if something bad happens as long as I could push that SOS button that help is on the way.

It wasn't funny at the time, but now I think it’s pretty funny that something as small as a mouse could become such an issue living wild in Alaska. Us dogs are off on another adventure this week.  We all hope you guys are doing awesome. I’ve almost given up a few times and just said “let's go home” but us dogs wake up in the morning and think it’s a new day. Let's live the best life we can let’s go on an adventure together. All of us dogs are sending all of you guys the biggest smile we can send, sometimes when we leave our comfort zone and go on an adventure big or small, .it just brings a big smile full of life long memories.