Snapshot Sunday: Oh. This Again.

One of the things that is so cool about Pip is her ho-hum attitude towards most of the strange things to which we subject her.

She knows when she's in the driver's seat, and when she just needs to relax and go along for the ride.

Did I ever mention that I'm deathly afraid of heights and exposure?

I spent one morning atop the barn when we did the roof job before concluding that my place in this project was with two feet on the ground. No one argued with me.

I have been known to hug the ground when on a treeless mountaintop. No shit.

But hook me into a system that has been rigged and checked by my trusted Mountain Rescue teammates -- a system that I understand and have helped to rig -- and I don't give it a moment's thought. Seriously. The moment my harness is clipped into whatever part of the system I'm working on, the fear of falling is off the table.

Pip seems to have internalized this same trust. I don't know whether she understands the system. She doesn't have any thumbs, so she can't tie knots.

Thanks to teammate Dan Beckey for scrambling down into the ravine to get this shot. Mountain Rescue highline training, Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group, January 23 2010.