ASO-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 8, 1995 Young Holstein Breeder (Continued from Page A 1) Doody, who grew up on a Maryland dairy farm, smelled smoke and checked the bam. He found thick smoke pouring out of a small door at the end of the 70-stall, hip-roofed dairy bam, where the herd was tied in overnight “You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” related Doody, who pushed his way through the pitch-black and the smoke to begin unfastening cows. He left briefly to wake his wife, Larissa, to call Emergency 911 and rouse the Woods, while he returned to the smoke-filled bam. By alternat ing running to the doors for gulps of fresh air to soothe his burning lungs, then returning to untie a few more cows, Doody released one side of the tail-to-tail double row of stalls. Larissa tracked his progress from the outside of the long bam, keeping him talking so that she knew exactly where he was and that he was not being overcome by the smoke. The first of six fire companies was on the scene in minutes and a firefighter assisted Steve Wood in untying the other line of cows. By then, the pile of an estimated ISO bales of smouldering hay in the center of the storage area over head was eating through the wooden floor, creating enough of an orange-glow to eerily light the barn’s dark interior. “All the doors upstairs and all but two small ones of the first floor were closed. Bob built this bam very solid and light,” Wood said of the concrete block and wood bam built several decades ago by his father-in-law, Bob Gitt. With hoses hooked up and in hand, the firefighters opened one of the large doers to the upstairs hay storage to gain better access to the smouldering bales. The ensu ing draft swept the flames toward the metal roofing, but they were quickly doused as the smouldering hay was flooded with water. By 8:00 A.M., electrical power was back on and huge mounds of the soggy hay which was pitched down to the center alleyway through the burned holes in the ceiling had been hauled to nearby fields. Hundreds of gallons of water had swept from the bam by friends and neighbors who arrived to help. “We are so blessed,” says Chris Wood, who was restrained by fire men when she tried to rush into the dense smoke to help untie the herd. “I’ve always been a Christ ian; I consider it a miracle. Scott Scott and Larissa Doody get acquainted with “Clara,” a December registered Hols tein from one of Penn Gate’s deep pedigreed cow families. The calf Is a gift to the Doody’* to thank them for summoning help and chasing cows from the smoke-filled Penn Gate dairy bam last Saturday. came home early for a reason; the bam doors were closed which kept the draft out. The bam and the herd could easily have been destroyed.” One cow in a stall beneath where the largest hole burned through the ceiling suffered slightly-singed marks dotting the white hair of her rump, where the Woods believe hot embers fell on her. The couple marveled at how calm the cows had remained through the crisis, with only a few coughing as they exited the bam under the 20-feet length of burn ing ceiling wood and the dense smoke, and quietly walked to the pasture’s distant comer. “They came up to me when I went out to the pasture with a flashlight, after things were get ting under control at the bam, and acted like they wanted to know what was going on,” Chris relates of the Wood’s terrifying, early morning ordeal. An area fire marshall deter mined the blaze to be of electrical origin, believed to have started in an elevator system installed two years ago in the second-floor hay storage area. However, Steve had been in the hay storage area at evening milking just hours before the fire and noticed nothing out of order. Though Chris got little sleep in the first nights following the fire, their dairying backgrounds have made the Woods cognizant of the disasters with which .family far mers must often contend. Chris was raised on the Penn Gate farm that is the family’s home, while Steve’s family dairied in northern Virginia. Both grew up with a love of showing cattle and met in 1984 during dairy heifer competition at the Maryland State Fair at Timonium. Following graduation with a dairy degree from Virginia Tech, Chris worked for an embryo tran fer firm headquartered near the university. Steve worked at Fair Hill Farm o.i Maryland’s Eastern Shore and at the former Bayville Holstcins, Virginia Beach. He also spent some time working with Maryland cattle sale and auction firm of the late Doty Rcmsburg. Having traveled in their respec tive jobs, both grew weary of the constant need to keep moving from place to place. Both have also seen devestation that drought can wreak on crop production and have instead chosen to focus their energies instead on the herd, rather than oh extensive acreage Hay smouldering in storage above the dairy herd left a few gaping holes in the wooden ceiling. Cows calmly exited the bam beneath the burning ceiling. A allghtly-discolorad taction of roof on tho bam at Pann Gata Parma la tha bla algn outakJa of a flra that threatened tha wall-known Adama County registered Holstein herd. and field equipment investment. Most hay is purchased and some planting and harvest chores custom-contracted. “People get in trouble when they try to focus on everything, so we prefer to focus on the cows,” the Woods agree. Chris’s dad, Bob Gilt, gets credit as the farm’s “Mr. Fix It,” who keeps the build ings well-maintained, helps with their extensive showing schedule. The Woods took over the day to-day operation of Penh Gate after their marriage in 1986. Today, the all-registered Holstein herd of 73 head averages 21,466 milk, with a 4.1 percent and 879 pound butterfat average, and a 3.4 percent and 730 pound protein average. A high-type herd, Penn Gate has 20 Excellents and 32 Very Good individuals, equating to an impressive 109.7 BAA. “Our goal is to maintain what we started with, because today you can lose genetics in one gen eration. We breed for functional type, which leads to cow longevi ty,” Steve says in summarizing their philosophy. “And we breed for what we want first and then secondly for a balance of index in the pedigress.” That the Wood’s philosophy pays off at the milk tank as well as the show ring is evidenced in their last DHIA test day results. Twelve of their top producers milked over the hundred-pound mark, includ ing one finishing with 140 pounds and another at 132 pounds. Marketing and merchandising is an integral part of the Penn State business plan and focuses primari ly on their “Fashion” family, which-traces back to a 4-H animal owned by Chris. Fashion was scored EX-92 and thedam of the bull, “Foreman,” a Blackstar son at Landmark Genetics, showing impressive sire summary results. A Leadman daughter from the same family topped the 1994 state Holstein convention at Gettysburg and was purchased by the internationally-known Lylehaven (Turn to Pago AST)
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