The Rural Voice, 1986-10, Page 18COVER STORY
AFTER THE FIRE:
A FRESH START
Roy and Agnes Diemert lost 23 years of progress when fire destroyed their barn and
forced them to sell their milking herd. But five years after the disaster, the Diemert
operation has been restored, although not without hard lessons in economizing.
by Mary -Lou Weiser -Hamilton
When dairy farmers get
together, the conversation
is usually about milk quotas, free
trade, and BCA averages. But
when Grey County's largest milk
producers, Roy and Agnes
Diemert, talk about their 200 -cow
dairy operation near Ayton, their
conversation is often spiked with
references to "the fire."
It's been five years since that
fire destroyed the Diemert's main
barn, and only through hard
work, careful management, and
the support of family and
neighbours have they been able to
control the aftermath, a
devastating ripple effect.
The Diemerts will not quickly
forget that cold February day in
1981. Roy Diemert was blowing
out the neighbour's laneway after
one of the worst snowstorms of
the season. His sons were clean-
ing calf pens in the barn. Without
warning, the tractor that they
were using exploded, sending
sparks throughout the barn. The
local fire department responded
promptly to the call and soon had
the fire under control, but then a
strong wind blew sparks onto a
lean-to attached to the barn.
Despite attempts to douse the
barnboards with water, what
started out as an -isolated fire
erupted into an inferno. Attempts
to extinguish the blaze were
hampered because one fire truck's
water supply was stopped cold by.
a freezing wind. Nearby fire
departments were called in, but
the blaze would not be checked.
"For half an hour, you
couldn't see the house and we
thought it was going to go too,"
Roy says. The house and some
outbuildings were saved, but Roy
16 THE RURAL VOICE
and Agnes Diemert watched
helplessly as their barn burned to
the ground.
They were able to remove their
milking herd from the stable, and
all the livestock, except a few
calves, was saved. Even as the
fire had blazed, local farmers had
loaded the cattle, sheltering them
from the cold in their own barns.
"I never thought it would take so
many trucks to move so many
cattle," Roy says. "Every
neighbour came with his half -ton
truck and took one or two cattle
home with him. Then the cattle
truckers came." Seventy cows
were housed and milked by
neighbouring farmers and the re-
maining 100 were trucked to a
local sales barn.
When the smoke had settled on
the ruins, the Diemerts were faced
with the problem of what to
do with their cattle. With no
facilities of their own left, and
none in the area large enough to
accommodate their herd, the
Diemerts decided to sell the
livestock. Sixteen days after the
fire, a dispersal sale of the entire
168 -cow herd, including 65
registered Holsteins, was held.
The sale brought record crowds
and good prices.
While the decision to sell was
entirely their own, the Diemerts
realize now that it was probably a
bad decision. "It was the wrong
thing to do, in hindsight, but
ours was a special problem
because of the size of the herd.
We could have run into problems
if we had kept them," Roy says.
Had the fire occurred later in the
year, in the spring or summer,
temporary housing might have
been accessible.
It had taken the Diemerts 23
years to build up their herd to a
BCA of 128, and they had been
at the point where it wouldn't
have taken long to reach their
goal, a BCA of 150. Selling the
herd meant beginning that long
process all over again. Fortunate-
ly, the milk house was saved, and
although it had to be entirely
rewired, 50 replacement heifers
which had been kept at another
barn were brought into produc-
tion 10 months after the fire.
Small cheques came in, but they
were hardly enough to cover the
debts.
Mortgage payments were met
by selling the young cattle and
beef cattle as well as doubles of
some farm machinery. The
Diemerts own 1,000 acres and
rent an additional 150 acres, all
within a 11/4 mile radius. The
large area had allowed them to
keep two of nearly everything in
their machinery line. "Someone
with less land would do with less,
but we had enough land to justify
the equipment expense," Roy
says.
"For a couple of years after
the fire, we had to sell our heifers
to keep up the payments. We
were at rock bottom, pretty
near," Roy adds. "We could
have sold some of the farms, but
at that time farms weren't selling
and we would probably have had
to sell them at a loss." They did
end up selling one of the farms,
but, Agnes says, "We didn't cry
about it because it went to our
future son-in-law."
The Diemerts rebuilt their barn
and looked forward to buying
cows to replace their herd. But
their worst fears were realized
when the bank refused to give
them financing. "It was at a time