We live in the world of hydraulic fracturing, the dozen of us, for two weeks at a time, 14 hours a day, shuffling the heavy iron in the Rube Goldberg maze of six-inch pipes connecting a two-acre artificial pond to eight natural gas wells. Five times a day the pond is drained by 10 huge diesel-powered pumps and then refilled by an endless line of water trucks.

At any given time, some of the pipes are empty while others will hold back four tons of water pressure. And you had better be sure before you touch them; hammering on the wrong union or opening the wrong valve can be fatal.

We have a lot of safety meetings and still this job is many times more dangerous than the average of all industry. We have 80-ton cranes and a mile of hoses pushing grease, water and methanol. There are 2,500 pounds of iron swinging in the air, and explosives being lowered into wells on three miles of cable.

The men who work here (and they are all men) spend their days in snow and rain running from one problem to the next, problems that usually are solved with a couple of 24-inch pipe wrenches or an eight-pound hammer.