State Fair: Agriculture building

The agriculture building is a focal point of the Iowa State Fair. It's basically a gigantic barn:

At any given moment hundreds of people are milling around.

This is an aside: At the State Fair it is a joke to put any food on a stick. It started years ago (I think with corn dogs, but I can't be sure) and has spread to pork chops, steak... now there are dozens of things on a stick. Seriously, check out the list here. I was happy to see something healthy on a stick. My friend Ryan said, "Yeah, but do you see anyone eating it?"

Sadly, no. For the entire day.

Iowa is the land of the ostrich and here are ostrich eggs. I've only seen ostriches once in my 40 years of living in the state but apparently we're a major producer.

Why they also displayed the ostrich legs sans meat is beyond me.
Iowa is also big on our honey production. I used to get a glass of tea from this place sweetened by honey until I realized that I just didn't like the flavor.

Thousands of live bees on hand to demonstrate the honey production. See the pics in the background? Yes, Iowa has it's own honey queen each year. Make fun if you want but my home county of Benton has a town that labels a "Weenie queen" each year. A Weenie queen dumped two nights before homecoming of my junior year of high school. I'm not bitter but I guess I'm bringing it up 25 years later.

The Iowa State Fair is most famous for its butter cow - part of which is seen to the right. Each year they do an additional theme and this year it is Dr. Seuss.
Here you can see the butter cow in its full glory. People travel hours and hours just to see this. You get it on this blog for free.

I know; you owe me.

The ice sculptures next to the butter cow are almost always more interesting but get none of the press.
Now we're into the agricultural part of the ag building. Iowa has fantastically fertile soil yet a short growing season. We do whatever it takes to grow anything we can.

This is popcorn. Much larger popcorn than what Dad grows.
Lots of field corn is submitted.

We're not Idaho, but we do grow a lot of potatoes.
Ever wanted cabbage twice the size of your head? Come to Iowa.
We're not wimps in Iowa; we like our hot peppers.

OK, back to corn. These are ridiculously long ears. As a farm kid I see this and think there's just something not natural about ears this long.

So I'll close with some award winning ears. The next time you drink a Coke, eat a taco, eat corn flakes or have beef, chicken or pork of any kind, think of this picture. This what produced what you are eating.