Excavators. Dozers. Dirt. Lots of dirt! Being a woman on the oil and gas pipeline of America has me feeling like the odd one out. I am the only female on our crew out of 30 men. I am one of two women in the entire operation, which is about 200 men. I am surrounded by burly pipeliner guys and being my first day, I wasfeeling a little bit insecure about it. But the trick is to show that I am fully confident and can pull my weight out there on the field.
Me looking all hot in my hard hat and vest!
I am a swamper hand which is an assistant to the heavy equipment operator, who just so happens to be my boyfriend. He has been operating heavy equipment for over 20 years, and is the best and most trustworthy operator I have ever seen. I mean, he really knows his shit!
Me, on the other hand, I am a complete green horn! I have worked in construction before, but nothing like this! Laying pipe in the ground is a completely different beast to new home construction.
Its dirty and its gritty. Its cold and windy and hot. I am exposed to all the elements, luckily I love to be in nature, as you can tell from my other posts, so I can handle the elements.
So, onto my first day. We are in Oklahoma for this job and its a loooong way from home, which is Montana. I miss Montana so much, but gotta make this pipeline money while its hot!
At first, I was nervous, I mean really nervous! There were excavators running and a dozer moving dirt all around, all within my vicinity. My first priority is always safety, but I was feeling nervous being in such close proximity to all these beastly machines.
As the day wore on, I eventually started getting the feel of what the guys were working on and where they were heading.
The goal of the day was to complete a creek crossing. The creek was in a pretty deep crevice and was covered in trees. I couldn't imagine how the guys would get across the creek!
This is the creek we had to cross.
Then I saw the machines in action and wow. They knocked down trees like they were toothpicks. The creek was filled with dirt in no time. Man, I didn't realize how powerful these machines are!
The creek after the guys cleared it and ran the road thru it, took no time at all!
Although, we did run into some trouble on this rocky patch. These big ol' rocks have got to come out so we can lay some pipe in the ground!
It was a long first day. I was way more nervous than I needed to be, but sometimes the nerves are good to keep you on your toes. It was pretty amazing to see how powerful and fast these machines can work. Still learning the ropes of what I need to be doing, for the most part, I was standing around while they made the right of way. What is the right of way? It is the strip of land where the pipe gets laid into the ground.