A day to celebrate, give back

EDGAR, Wis. — Neither wind nor fire has dampened Wayne and Samantha Giese’s passion for breeding registered Holsteins. They will share their farm and their herd with Holstein enthusiasts from across Wisconsin next month.

The Gieses will host the Wisconsin Holstein Association’s state picnic Sept. 12 at Sam-Way Dairy near Edgar. The Gieses, along with their son, Justin, milk 57 cows. Wayne’s parents, Russ and Barb, live nearby and remain involved with the farm. The event will celebrate the new barn built after a 2023 fire and mark the centennial celebration for the Marathon County Holstein Breeders as well.

“When we (the MCHB) realized that milestone was approaching, we decided we should do something special,” Wayne said. “We thought hosting the picnic was a good way to share our history with other breeders in the state.”

The day will feature a catered pig roast meal, a judging contest, a calf raffle and two speakers. Ben Clark, historian for the Marathon County Historical Society, will speak about the history of the organization and its connections to the county’s agricultural roots. Dan Cnossen, a former Marathon County Holstein breeder and Holstein Association USA classifier, will share anecdotes of his decades spent breeding registered Holsteins and traveling to evaluate them.

“It’ll be a day filled with good food, good cows, fun stories and great fellowship,” Samantha said. “It’ll be a day anyone with an affinity for breeding registered dairy cattle can enjoy.”

The Gieses feel ready to open the doors to their farm and new barn as they near the completion of their rebuilding project more than three years after the fire and nearly 10 years after the farm was hit by an EF-1 tornado in 2016.

Wayne recalled the day of the fire. After mowing the lawn, Russ returned to his home a quarter mile away, and Wayne was catching up on paperwork from their county fair the week before.

“Shortly after I heard him leave, he came back,” Wayne said. “He came running in the house and said, ‘Wayne, I think the barn’s on fire.’”

Russ had noticed smoke coming from the northeast corner of the haymow, which was filled with more than 300 large square bales. In that corner, Wayne found four bales of straw, leftover from the year before, burning.

As the Gieses began evacuating cows, Wayne compared the air quality in the barn to July’s wildfire smoke.

“It was really hazy; the cows weren’t bothered by it yet,” Wayne said. “We got the cows out within five minutes. Within that time, it got so bad I could hardly see.”

Neighbors began arriving to help, and with their assistance, Samantha was able to evacuate the calves. Wayne kept an eye on the heifer barn, ready to evacuate that if needed.

“I was watching the barn burn, and suddenly, there was an explosion,” Wayne said. “A piece of roof landed right in front of me and caught my pants on fire. The shavings up in the haymow exploded and blew the roof off.”

The noise sent the cows running to the burning barn that had once been their safe haven.

“We got the cows back to the pasture, and I turned around and saw a bale of hay in the heifer barn on fire,” Wayne said. “I started moving the heifers out. We had a Brown Swiss calf that I struggled to find in a 12- by 20-foot pen (because) the smoke was so thick.”

As many as 100 neighbors and friends arrived and began working to contain the heifers running around the farm. Wayne said he was hit with the enormity of what they were facing.

“I wondered, ‘What was I going to do with all these animals?’” Wayne said. “I knew there were a couple of barns around where the cows had been sold. I started asking around and found that most of them had all had steel and water lines removed.”

The Gieses were able to locate a nearby barn that was empty, ready to milk in and could accommodate most of the cows. The remaining cows were dispersed among friends. The task of moving cattle to temporary homes was undertaken by the many people who came to help.

The first few days were especially stressful, the Gieses said, as they worked to develop chore routines and care for their animals away from home. Despite the upheaval and trauma, the Gieses said their cows handled the fire better than they handled the tornado.

“One of the first calls I made after calling 911 was to our vet,” Wayne said. “She came out and checked everything over. We were lucky that way; we didn’t see any lingering health effects.”

The process of rebuilding moved fast. The new barn was ready for the cows to come home just 63 days after the fire.

While they craved solitude to process the trauma, they were urged by friends to explore options to move forward. When he placed a call to Freudenthal Dairy and Manufacturing Company on a Monday, Wayne was told they would need his order by Wednesday morning.

“We literally had 36 hours to plan a barn,” Wayne said. “We were trying to draw this thing out at night, after moving cattle all day, not knowing any of the legal stuff or permits or anything. We knew we wanted to add on to the barn but didn’t know how that would affect the manure pit or the pipe or anything.”

While they utilized the existing footprint, the Gieses added 40 feet onto the north end of the barn. The barn held only two additional stalls, as the stalls were enlarged to better accommodate their cows.

The Gieses never want to repeat either the fire or tornado experiences but said community response to the events made the hardest days easier to bear. And for them, that is worth celebrating.

“If it wasn’t for the way our friends, family and community helped us when the chips were down and helped us rebuild, I don’t think we’d be here today,” Wayne said. “Hosting this picnic is a way we can show our appreciation for everyone — our fellow Holstein breeders here in the county and around the state; our community who showed up to help us and get us back on our feet so quickly; and all our friends and family who stood beside and supported us.”