Adults Take Over Little Hands on the Farm at the Fair
Little Hands on the Farm is usually reserved for kids, but during the Iowa State Fair’s Fair After Dark series, the grownups take over! Adults get the chance to enjoy the hands-on farming activities, from planting to milking, all while enjoying a playful, after-hours fair experience. See how this fun twist on a family favorite gives fairgoers a whole new way to explore agriculture.
Transcript
My name is Emily Wynn. I'm the education and outreach coordinator here at the Iowa State Fair, and I coordinate Fair After Dark. And tonight we're at the Little Hands Fair After Dark. This is an adult event. It's 21 and over, and people get to come.
They get to experience Little Hands, mostly people who probably grew up bringing their kids through Little Hands on the Farm. And tonight, it's all about them. It's all about making that connection from the farm to the plate while also having a few drinks and enjoying themselves at Little Hands After Dark.
I am Kylie Peterson, and I'm representing the Iowa Beef Industry Council here tonight at the Fair After Dark event. And here in Little Hands on the Farm, we have a cattle barn that represents a feedlot in Iowa. And so we are teaching people how to make a cattle ration. And they're going to be doing that by adding each ingredient that you would be adding to a steak seasoning, and that would be very similar to making a cattle ration.
And so then afterwards, they'll be able to take home their steak seasoning.
I'm Joyce Hoppas with Iowa Pork Producers Association, and I have with me tonight Calla Langel, who is one of our pork ambassadors, and Amanda Ostrom, who is our pork queen. We'll be having a pork trivia question as well as giving a sample of a pork belly on a stick.
I'm Elycia VanVacter. I'm here with the Iowa Egg Council. Today we are out here at the Fair After Dark to serve up our new fair. Food of the year is the Fairgrounds Fiesta Wonton, which is a jalapeno popper egg salad in a wonton wrapper with some hot honey and pico on it. It's really delicious.
I'm Alyson Vendrick. I am an ag affairs manager with Midwest Dairy, and we are here tonight at Fair After Dark, and we're going to be serving up some delicious Thelma's ice cream cookie sandwiches after they milk the Bessie cow.
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[Monica Walker] So I saw on social media an awesome event for a VIP night out at the fair. And I thought, what better way than to spend a night out at the fair? And it's just fabulous. It's been so awesome, and I'm so excited to be here.
[Woman 1] Pull down. There you go. Yep, that'd be perfect. Yeah. Excellent.
You guys have cattle?
[Man 1] No, but I got family. We raise show pigs.
[Denise Youngers, Urbandale] I have all my adult kids who grew up coming to Little Hands on the Farm for years. And then when we saw that Fair After Dark was going to be here this year we just had to come. Oh, this is fantastic. So we actually have a friend who came up with the concept of Fair After Dark several years ago.
And so we've been coming to most of the Fair After Dark events each year that they've had them. They're great.
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Cheers to Fair After Dark.