Reprinted with permission from Shela Gunnink, On The Farm, February 6, 2020 issue. The Howard Kass barn was the Barn of the Week feature.
By Jill Fennema
On The Farm
Howard Kass owns this week’s Barn of the Week. He farms east of Fulda, on the shores of Lake Talcot.
His parents, Joe and Eleanor Kass, moved to the acreage when Howard was five years old. He and his 10 siblings were all raised there. His dad was a dairy farmer. The size of the herd fluctuated, but at one time he had 74 dairy cows. They only had 18 stanchions in the barn, so each morning, they would have to cycle the cows through the barn.
Originally, there were four horse stalls in the front of the barn, with the milking area behind that. Now, Howard uses the former milking area for lambing. He owns 74 ewes. He still stores hay and straw in the hay mow, but when he stacked hay bales there last summer he told himself, “Enjoy this now, because this is the last time you will probably do this.”
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