Let Me Explain How A Water Stop Works.....

I wish peta would show up for a water stop so they could see how much we do for these animals. let me try to explain this so you all can understand.... during train runs, while everyone else is getting wasted, animal crew gets to be on call 24 hours a day. for instance- this morning i was woken up at 6am and told the water stop was ready to go. when we get down to the stock cars where the animals are, i see that the train has parked on a 30 foot hill- almost straight up with all rocks- not grass. great. next step- climb up into the car where the 100 pound bales of hay are housed. we throw them over the side and of course, because we are parked on a 30 foot rock hill, every single bale rolls down the hill. great. next step- drag the 100 pound bales of hay back up the hill and lift them about 9 feet in the air onto the stock cars where the animals are. now in order to fully comprehend the next step i have to explain how the horses are kept in the stock cars. for safety reasons they are in very narrow, but long stalls with doors that you lift up to get from stall to stall. when you open the door to one stall there is about 1.5-2.0 feet of clearance to crawl under to get to the next stall. we crawl in so we are just under their heads. we repeat this with all 13 horses. so back to the next step- i get to get on my hands and knees, push a 100 pound bale of hay through to the last stall. i crawl through shit, piss, bugs, dirt, not to mention the entire time my pony tail is being nibbled at because the horses are so excited that 1. they get to eat and 2. there are people there. so- after i have crawled and made it to the end stall i give each horse enough hay to last 12 hours. then i crawl back where i came from and repeat with the next line of horses- they are split into the paints and fjords on one car, fresians and arabs on another car, and ponies are housed in a different car. you should see us when we are done with the water stop. we look like we have just crawled through a sewer. i would love for peta to come on the road and join us for a week. then maybe they would have respect for how we treat our incredibly spoiled, well loved animals. well. i am going to go back to bed. trainmaster said we are about 4 hours out from oakland. hopefully they spot all the cars on time so we can do the animal walk and have tomorrow off.

chow!