Archive for Hertzler Farm & Feed

Hertzler Farm Fire: From the Ashes We Will Rise

{ May 11, 2025 @ 8:18 pm } · { Hertzler Farm & Feed, Quarterfield Markets }
{ Tags: , , , , } · { Comments (3) }

We were alerted to the fire at 6:54 p.m. on April 12, a Saturday night. It was a night we will never forget and crawled into bed at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning full of grief and exhaustion, mixed with lots of questions about the future and a sinking feeling of total helplessness. Sunday morning we realized it was not just a bad dream but a horrible stark reality. A stinky, acidity, smoky smell lingered in the air and the view from the kitchen window was witness to the stark reality of the overwhelming task before us. A firetruck had spent the night and was still maning the smoking ruins.

Our retail store-the main room.
Looking in the front door of the store.

There was no way we could drag ourselves to church. We were physically and emotionally drained and needed to be just us-a family in grieving. In the afternoon an amazing thing happened; cars and pickups started pouring in filled with caring friends and neighbors wanting to help.

For the next two weeks there were 25-45 people each day sorting through the ruins, picking up trash, cleaning and drying photos and personal items.

We had a storage room where Jill and I were storing household items and keepsakes as they were in the process of moving to Powhatan.

Track loaders, dump trucks, and excavators arrived. The farm shop and baler were also destroyed but most of the tools were salvagable and had to be moved to another building.

The burned up round baler that was in the shop. They had just finished maintanence on it earlier in the afternoon and had it ready for this year’s hay season.
Only a handful of treasurers were spared. An old milk can from Gene’s home in Denbigh.
On the left is a quilt made by my Grandmother Heatwole (Fannie Belle Heatwole) and on the right by my mother (Fannie Showalter Heatwole). I had put them in plastic totes to “protect” them in storage.
A bed spread made by my mother from scraps of material from my “homemade” dresses as I was growing up!!!
We had to build a new space for the pressure tank for our well water system.
The shop with the burned out storage area on the left.

An existing warehouse had to be readied to serve as new storage for the feed store. There was so much to do and so many willing hands to do it.

Repairing the dock.

Mealtrain was set up to provide food and for one full month I did not fix a meal. Many people benefited from those wonderful, delicious meals delivered with love. Go-Fund-Me and private donations provided the necessary funds to keep us surviving. Our church had a community barbecue fundraiser. We needed so much and so much was given. Boxes and boxes arrived from Amazon with office supplies and equipment. One Amazon driver said, “I have never delivered so many boxes to one place”. Local businesses helped us get our new office set up and flooring put in. Another got our water restored, another replaced an electric pole and another removed some trees.

A team of fifteen students came from Liberty University for a Saturday workday. After a hard day of work, a full belly of food and relaxing on the lawn they enjoyed a hay ride.

People were truly the arms of Jesus holding us up and helping us get back on our feet. The community of Powhatan and beyond truly was amazing.

A friend and former pastor came from Pennsylvania to sit with us. It was what our weary souls needed. Thank you Tim.

The transformation has been amazing. It is now been a month and the ruins are cleaned up. We have felt a strong mandate from the community to rebuild. Social media buzzed with a desire to see us rebuild and to pledge to help that happen.

Our feed store reopened in five days in a revamped version. The Farmer’s Market relaunched yesterday, exactly one month from the fire, in an outdoor tent setting.

An Old Hickory storage shed came in two days after the fire. It has become our new office and sales for feed, lawn and wildlife seeds, fertilizer, lime, shavings, hay and straw.

Our vendors from our Farmer’s Market, that had been open for only one week, gathered on our lawn several days after the fire and the mandate from them was clear. They were solidly behind us and wanted to be a part of a relaunching. A blog post about the relaunching will be coming soon. After the fire, channel 8 and channel 12 (local news stations) came out and interviewed us. One reporter said, “We heard about the fire and began to look at social media. We saw the support of the local community and noted that something special was going on and wanted to cover it.”

Relaunch Day-May 10: The market is set up and ready for business.

It was an amazing Relaunch day with absolutely perfect weather, lots of excitement and crowds of people. Until a permanent facility can be built, the market will be open Thursday and Fridays 8 am – 5 pm and Saturdays 8 -12 noon weather permiting.

We can never express our thanks adquately. Caring and sharing is never about public praise and so we are refraining from publicly naming people or businesses. You know who you are. May God bless you and please accept our humble and grateful thanks

This puzzle piece that was found among the ruins seems a fitting ending to this post. I had a puzzle library of over 500 puzzles that people could check out. The fire was furious and almost nothing survived it’s consuming fury. But the few finds were surprising and this puzzle piece was one of them. A fragile thin piece of cardboard, charred black, but still intack. I just wonder how! Sometimes it takes more than a fire to bring total ruin. From the ashes, we will rise.

The following verse is a comforting promise from God….good can come out of bad…. joy and beauty where they are ashes.

“To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” This verse is often interpreted as a promise from God to replace sorrow and despair with joy and beauty.”  Isaiah 61:3

Hertzlers Farm Fire

{ April 28, 2025 @ 10:40 am } · { Hertzler Farm & Feed, Quarterfield Markets }
{ Tags: , , , } · { Comments (3) }

Never could we have imagined such a devastating fire that almost completely destroyed our business and farm shop. Here is our story.

Saturday evening, April 12, Gene and I were in our comfy spots in the living room, me resting in the lazy boy chair catching up on social media and Gene stretched out on the sofa watching TV. Our peaceful quiet evening was shattered at 6:55 when my cell phone rang. It was Luanne from up at the horse stables. “Are you burning something down there”? I responded, “No” and she said, “You better look out your window.”

The sight from my kitchen window stunned me. I yelled to Gene, “The store is on fire.” He leaped off the sofa, shoved on his shoes and raced to the store on the golf car while I dialed 911. Then I took my first picture.

6:56 p.m.

Mike, Luanne’s husband, was there in an instant. He and Gene tried to enter the store but the smoke was too thick.

4 minutes later…7 pm. The retail store was totally engulfed. Black smoke was pouring from the old dariy stanchion barn which we used to warehouse feed.
7 minutes later…7:03 p.m. They quickly ran out of water. Ironically the county “dry hydrants” were dry and they had to pull from a nearby pond in Maple Cottage.

The fire trucks started to arrive and water sprayed on the fire. Heavy smoke was also coming from the back left of the stanchion barn where our main warehouse of feed was located.

7:06 p.m……10 minutes. The firemen attended to break into the stanchion barn door.

7:07 p.m….. 11 minutes
7:09 p.m…… 12 minutes. The stanchion barn was fully engulfed.
7:12 p.m…. 15 minutes. The whole structure was a totaly engulfed inferno. There was no saving the stucture-just trying to control the spread.

It is a terrible thing to sit in a lawn chair in your backyard and watch your business, your livelihood, burn to the ground and there is nothing you can do. By this time there were lots of fire and tanker trucks. 55,000 gallons of water were dumped on the fire. I am not sure how many counties responded to the call but I know we saw Amelia, Goochland, and Huguenot. Someone said they were about 15 fire trucks here.

We lost a total of six buildings, five of which were attached to our store complex and the farm shop which was to the right.

7:27 p.m…. 31 minutes.

I asked about the towering, black smoke billowing from the structure. I commented to the fire chief I couldn’t figure out what was burning as there were no tires or anything rubber that I could think of. He said it was the feed. Feed have oils in it and even though it is vegetable based, it burns black. I found that very interesting.

7:36 p.m.

Family and neighbors gathered to watch and grieve with us. There were literally the arms of Jesus surrounding us and holding us up. We knew they cared and it was good to have people to help process what was happening. Someone said that cars were parked all they way out the driveway to the road.

Later we were told that the smoke was seen in Amelia and Cumberland. Someone traveling on 45 from Farmville saw the smoke. Bits of insulation floated to a neighbor’s field a mile or more away.

The sheriffs department flew a drone overhead the entire time shining a light for the firemen and watching for spreading flames and hot spots. They told us that there were four or five other drones of neighbors taking a look but they stayed their distance and did not interfere.

7:41 p.m.
7:46 p.m…. 1 hour.

The really bright yellow over the top of the firetruck are the four propane tanks that were at the back of the store. They did not explode but vented as they were suppose to do fueling a very hot fire that spread to our personal storage room and farm shop. Our daughter and her husband (Jill and Obe) are in the process of moving to Powhatan and had a significant amount of things already moved and in the storage room by the shop. To make room in our house, I had stored some of my personal things also; pictures, family treasures, quilts made by mother and my grandmother, blankets, books, childhood toys and treasures, floor shampooer, grill, etc.
7:47 p.m. The storage room and shop are now engulfed.

Our round baler was in the shop getting it ready for the hay season. They finished at 4:30. The smoke was too intense to get it out. We had an appliance man add freon to a fridge in the store earlier in the afternoon and he asked me to check it an hour or so later to make sure it was working properly. I checked it at 4:30 also. Nothing seemed amiss and the fridge was working properly.

8:50 p.m.
8:55 p.m. Two hours….all that was left was an arid smelling, smoking and burning shell of a stucture and rubble. Amazingly the feeders on the front dock of the store survived!

We started Hertzler Farm and Feed in October 1983. It had survived the test of time for 42 years. Quarterfield Markets, the pride and vision of Jill and our granddaughter Lauren, which had been open one week was gone. On launch day the Saturday before we had over 1000 here. Now all that was left of our business was hay, straw, fertilizer, lime and shavings as they were in another warehouse and containers.

Finally at 1 a.m in the morning we gathered in the living room of the house to decompress and process as a family. At 2 a.m. we all headed off to bed, exhausted, emotionally drained, sad, and weary. There were so many questions and so few answers. A firetruck stayed and kept watch all night for flare ups and hot spots. All I could say as I crawled into bed was….God I trust you. We are all safe, it could have been much worse. Give us peace, wisdom and your guidance for the future.

Stay tuned….Part 2 coming soon.