AUBURN – Flames still flickered beneath smoldering mounds of hay Monday, nearly a week after the house and barns at Graceland Dairy Farms burned to the ground.

Owner Roger Gauthier Jr. had spent the night in a camper trailer parked next to the milking shed, not wanting to stray too far from his herd of cows.

He bought two used trailers over the weekend – one for hired hand Ronald Niggle – to live in while he goes about putting back together the pieces of his life, as well as pieces of one of the few remaining dairy farms in the region.

“It’s not a castle, but it’ll do for now,” Gauthier said of the camper.

His companion of 23 years, Virginia Beauchesne, spent the night with a friend nearby. The couple plan to sell their 75 milking cows to a Vermonter because the cows’ stalls were destroyed by the fire. It wasn’t fair to make them stay outdoors, Beauchesne said as the two waited for a veterinarian to arrive Monday morning.

They’ll hold onto roughly 50 calves, housing them in a barn down the road. That way, when they rebuild next year, they’ll have a new herd to start milking.

The couple has had little time for rest or reflection on the events over the past week.

“Life has to go on,” Beauchesne said Monday. “We’ve got to get the hay in today before it rains.”

In fact, it was wet hay stored in the barn’s loft that officials said caused the fire shortly before 4 a.m. last Tuesday.

At that time, all three of the farmhouse inhabitants were awake and readying for the morning milking.

Gauthier was in the queuing area between the barn and milking shed when he heard a “whoosh.” He rushed into the barn and could only see a shower of cinders “like sparklers” raining down through the smoke.

He yelled to Niggle that the barn was on fire and to get Beauchesne out of the house. Then Gauthier drove the cows out of the barn. “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face,” he said. He could barely breathe. Some of the cows tried to turn back.

Meanwhile, Beauchesne was in the house making coffee. She thought she smelled smoke. “I thought I was crazy,” she said. A moment later, she saw flames shooting through the roof of the barn.

Later that morning, all of the cows had been accounted for. A house cat, Whitey, who was missing that morning, showed up two days later. Another cat, not in the house at the time, is still missing.

Friends and neighbors flocked to the scene, helping with the morning chores and the 8 a.m. milking as firefighters continued battling the blaze.

The house Gauthier had lived in for 33 years burned, too. Firefighters had run out of water 3 miles from the closest hydrant.

Gauthier and Beauchesne said they’ll rebuild with the insurance money.

Niggle, who lived upstairs in the farmhouse, lost everything. He had no insurance.

Gauthier said he never considered not starting over. He is a farmer, like his father. It’s all he knows.

“It’s in my blood,” he said. “Every penny I ever had went into this farm,” he said, standing next to the rubble.

Not everything was lost, Gauthier said. Two CDs, part of a $5,000 Elvis collection, were salvaged from the ashes.

Niggle showed them to Gauthier, proclaiming: “Elvis lives.”