So, my week ended somewhat tragically with my barn burning down in the middle of the night.
As some know, we had recently (last year) built a large barn for our animals and for storage purposes. Well, apparently, on Thursday night, a heating lamp fell over onto some hay. It was cold out and we were worried about the comfort of our potbelly pigs. I woke up early Friday morning around 5:30 to switch out the laundry. As I was passing my back door I noticed my barn completely engulfed in flames. I immediately ran to my parents room and woke them up and told them. While they got dressed and called 911, I threw on a pair of shoes and a jacket and ran outside because I was hoping the best for at least some of our animals. the entire barn was covered in flames and was partially falling down when I got to it, so I knew our rabbit, chickens, and baby pigs had to be dead. However, in the back of the barn, the part I couldn’t see from the house, we have two separate pens for our pigs and goats. Their shelter was only partially covered but they had a fence made of pallets surrounding them, I ran around the barn hoping they wouldn’t be surrounded by flames. Luckily, the fire hadn’t surrounded them yet but it was close and getting closer. When I made it to them, there were 3 goats, 2 potbelly pigs, and our larger bore pig still alive. I was the only one down there at first and I tried to break down the fence but it was hopeless, that thing was sturdy. Once my mom got down there she tried helping me pull the fence down, but even then it wasn’t working. So, I jumped over the fence in there with the animals and started lifting them over and helping my mom set them down. At this point, we didn’t care about getting them into a different coral, we just wanted them safe from the fire. Once we got all three goats out and one potbelly pig, we realized how bad off the other potbelly pig was. I had to run inside to grab the gun and we had to put it down before it burned to death like the other animals. Our bore pig was a different story, there was no lifting him. He weighs close to 350-400 lbs so breaking the fence was the only option. Most of our tools were inside the barn so I had to run to my car to grab hammers to beat down the fence around the pig. We got him out when the fire trucks finally got there. They didn’t put out the fire, they just watched it burn and helped it fall a little bit.
Once the excitement of that was over, and the sun was up we began looking for our animals in our pasture and thanks to the help of our neighbors, we found them all and were able to put them in a temporary enclosed area until we could move them to our family land in Lone Grove. Then we started calling insurance and all. We sat down and thought about what all we lost in the fire.. along with all of our storage being gone, like ski clothes, Christmas decorations (homemade ones we’ve had since I was 6 that can’t be replaced) and other things such as our lawn mower, my bothers’ four wheeler and bicycles. The most unbearable loss was how many animals we lost. we started out with 77 and only 6 survived.
Though this experience was awful and we would much rather it not have happened, we know that everything happens for a reason which God has not yet explained to us. He has a plan and he has always taken care of us, we know everything will be fine. I’m thankful I woke up when I did, I’m thankful that it didn’t make it to our house, and I’m thankful for how many of my friends and family reached out to us and offered to help how they can. It’s been an experience, that’s for sure, but we will trust in Gods plan and that he will never steer us wrong, and we will be just fine.
