Family decides to rebuild after devastating blaze
Dairy farmer rebuilds a life after fire destroyed barn with 82 cows last year
Peter Ruiter figures he had two options after a fire last fall destroyed his livelihood: He could rebuild and return to dairy farming, the job he’s worked at and loved for the past 35 years, or he could walk away from his Blackrapids Farm and try something new — politics, perhaps, or feed sales. He was fast approaching 50, and the smart money, not to mention most of the people offering him free, unsolicited counsel, told him to get out of farming.
He recognizes that advice was likely the financially sounder choice. Still, he decided to rebuild.
“I think those people don’t get that I love what I’m doing,” he says. “If you hated doing this and it was a job to get up every morning, then, yeah, you’re looking forward to retirement. But if you love what you’re doing … I wasn’t planning my retirement; I was planning what I was going to do for the next 10 years, with the barn, with the cows, with everything. And I’m looking forward to this now.”
Right now, “this” doesn’t look like much: The digging of the foundation commenced on June 1, and the wall framing has been going up since the beginning of July. On Tuesday, the roof trusses were delivered, while workers raised some decorative timber framing for the barn’s front door, featuring 8” x 8” white oak beams and dowels similar to those used in the original building. Ruiter expects it will be mid August before the roof is in place, and mid November before the 25,000 square-foot barn will be completed and the process of restocking the herd underway.
On Sept. 8, 2017, a fire engulfed and consumed the NCC-owned, 1870s barn that the Ruiter family had worked in for six decades, dating back to 1958 when Tinus Ruiter, Peter’s father, arrived from the Netherlands to work as a hired hand on the Prince of Wales Drive farm then owned by the Craig family. The blaze killed 80 Holstein cows and calves, plus two more in the days that followed. Sixteen cows — 10 that were out to pasture and six at a neighbour’s farm, were spared.
The outpouring of support was swift and generous, as friends, neighbours, acquaintances and strangers alike showed up with food, money, condolences, best wishes and offers of help. A GoFundMe fundraising webpage brought in $55,000.
“The community support has been tremendous, and this barn doesn’t get built without it,” Ruiter says. “That, with the NCC help and the insurance help, that’s what’s building the barn.
“I’ve been pretty blessed with what’s happened so far, and pretty amazed with how good people are.”
The deluge of encouragement continued until after Christmas, Ruiter recalls. It took him and his wife, Rosemary, nearly that long to decide what to do.
“I’m 50 and I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and for a lot of people, that’s their whole career. But I wasn’t ready to give up.”
They made the decision to rebuild in late November or early December last year.
“I like doing stuff, and I like working, and I liked the job I was doing before, so why would I give it up?”
Ruiter also recalls a piece of advice a stranger gave him at a benefit fundraiser last year. After offering his condolences, the man said he wanted Ruiter to remember one thing. “He said ‘I had a heart attack when I was 48, and they told me I had less than 10 years to live, so I sold everything to live for 10 years in retirement. And I’ve been waiting 32 years to die. Don’t wait — live your life.’
“And that really stuck with me.” This modern-day version of a barn-raising, close to a milliondollar venture before you add the cows, milking robots and other equipment, involves numerous partners, including bankers, insurance companies, the NCC and the kindness of friends and strangers.
And while the barn should be functioning in a handful of months, he says he expects it’ll be a decade to build his herd to what it was before the fire.
Meanwhile, the 20 cows he currently has live on six nearby farms while construction continues, and Ruiter checks in on them regularly.
“I’ve got to get my cow fix in,” he says.
“The cows will be in the best hotel they could ever be in,” Ruiter says of the new barn. “And by golly, by the time everything ’s figured out and if my plan works out, I’ll have a nice living and maybe won’t have to work as hard as I have in the past — maybe the 80 to 90 hours a week will just be 65, with robots milking and feeding the cows.
“It’s nice to know that in the future, my son or daughter or family will take over a farm that’s now starting in 2018, and not 1870.”
Iwasn’t planning my retirement;
I was planning what I was going to do for the next 10 years, with the barn, with the cows, with everything.