The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
The Farmer's Greatest Asset podcast is dedicated to supporting and empowering farmers by recognizing that their greatest assets are the knowledge, experience, mind and health. Hosted by husband-and-wife duo Jesse and Dr. Leah, this podcast combines their unique backgrounds to provide valuable insights. Together, they explore topics that help farmers thrive both personally and professionally. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, real conversations, while having a little fun along the way as they talk about all thing's agriculture and family.
The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
Pork Chops And Pig Poop: Our State Fair Tradition
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We're heading to the Iowa State Fair with 4-H cattle and breeding heifers, continuing a family tradition that spans generations for Jesse while creating new memories for our entire family.
• Comparing state fair experiences: Jesse has attended almost every year of his life, while Dr. Amy first attended in 2005
• Evolving accommodation strategies from hotels to campers to Airbnb houses
• Navigating the fair with children of different ages and varying levels of interest
• Favorite fair foods including pork chop on a stick, hot beef sundaes, and Barksdale's cookies
• Must-see attractions beyond livestock shows including the master gardeners' display and Six Horse Hitch competitions
• Iowa State Fair's reputation as one of the country's premier agricultural expositions
Contact us at farmersgreatesasset@gmail.com to share your state fair traditions or favorite fair experiences. Like and share us on social media to help spread the word so we can help other farming families.
the farmer's greatest asset podcast. We believe the farm's greatest asset is the farmer their knowledge, experience, mind and health. Welcome back to the podcast. I am jesse and I'm dr. Or should we say welcome back to the porch for a little coffee. Yeah, coffee on the porch. So last episode we said we will be headed to the State Fair and it is State Fair Week.
Speaker 2The great Iowa State Fair.
Speaker 1It's the greatest, at least I like to think so. That's a proud farmer thing, yeah, right, right, we are proud of our state fair for sure.
Speaker 2I think iowans are just in general proud of iowa and we should be right. I mean like when we go on vacation we are always looking for other people from iowa, like we might know them right but it is crazy how many times we go on vacation and run into people we know or people that know people we know From Iowa or people have family or friends in Iowa.
Speaker 1There are a lot of connections to Iowa around the country.
Speaker 2Yeah, we find somebody almost every time we travel, but we will be traveling up to the iowa state fair yes, we are headed up with some 4-h cattle.
Speaker 1We're going to show some breeding heifers, pack them up, come home, re-rack and go right back up for some open show breeding cattle.
Speaker 2So we are at least just doing one species. There are some families we know that are back and forth and back and forth with three different species like multiple animals.
Speaker 1God bless them.
Speaker 2Different shows, yeah, wow running from pavilion to barn to, because they're showing at the same time and yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1That's not for us, but they love it.
Speaker 2They do, it's their thing, it is their thing.
Speaker 1You basically never went to the Iowa State Fair.
Speaker 2Not until after residency. The first time I went was in 2005. I got done with residency and moved back and then went up that year.
Speaker 1Me. On the other hand, I don't think I have ever missed. I have missed one state fair and that was when I was at Clemson University going to school. Other than that, I have not missed a single state fair. I'd have to ask mom when the first time I ever went, but we showed pigs at the state fair every single year, whether it were a four H show or open show. So we have not missed a single year and had some success doing it. So that was also part of the fun.
Speaker 2I have not missed the state fair, since you and I have been together.
Speaker 1Maybe a disease, I don't know. We have to together. Maybe a disease, I don't know. We have to go to the state fair.
Speaker 2You. I yes, there were times that I'm like really the kids are, the kids are not loving it anymore.
Speaker 1But they do now, like when they were little, little but they.
Speaker 2I mean we had a nice inline stroller and pushed them around. I think once we had Lizzie things were. It was a little more complicated. I remember carrying them around the hog barn because Henry and Lucy loved the pigs and they were little and I'd have to pick them up and of course their shoes would have pig poop on them. I just, by the end of the day, was covered in pig poop, like my legs were just covered in pig poop and I just think you like saying that, just say pig shit pig shit and I smelled so bad and I just wanted to go home and or go to the hotel and go to bed.
Speaker 1Yeah, so this year we are going to spend an entire week there because we'll go up for the 4-H show and back Renting a house this time, rather than doing a hotel or something like that. We've done the camper thing before. In a lot of families that is their tradition.
Speaker 2Take the camper up and camp at the Iowa State Fair if you were on the fairgrounds, like if you could get a spot there.
Speaker 1I can, I can see the we never did the camping on the fairgrounds. We went to an off-site down the road a little bit camping area and it was okay. But that, uh, we did it a couple years. That one year henry showed it was that was brutal it was there's no water hookups and you get back late because you gotta kick cattle out to tie outs and the hot water's gone yeah, stand in line for a cold shower.
Speaker 2That was and you have, you know, tweens at that time that don't really care if they shower or not anyway, and then you're making them take cold showers.
Speaker 1At the public shower house.
Speaker 2At the public shower house. I just said we are never doing this again. I want to not have to then worry about taking all the bedding home and the towels and cleaning it all at home and bringing it back up.
Speaker 1That's the other thing. With a camper, that's a whole other house you got to pack up.
Speaker 2It was twice as much work it was. You know, it was an experience.
Speaker 1So now we just Airbnb it. It's kind of nice Just rent a house and everybody's got their own bed and everybody can kind of spread out after the, in the evenings, in the fair, after the fair well and we have, you know, like henry would live in the barns.
Speaker 2Lucy likes to go and wants to be there, but she also likes some. She's more of an introvert, so she likes her own space and own time. And liz Lizzie is. She likes to be there, she likes to not be there, so she likes to have her own time, not as much as Lucy. So the girls will be able to come and go and enjoy themselves that way too.
Speaker 1It'll be fun. I love the state fair. Lucy has never shown at the state fair, has she? No Henry has shown in the 4-H Cattle Show. He's shown some open shows, showed in the Governor's Charity Steer Show.
Speaker 2That was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1It was an experience.
Speaker 2It was a very difficult time for us, but it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1That was four weeks after I was hurt. So that was I willed myself to go to the state fair that year and, yeah, you guys got to push me around in a wheelchair, or you had a scooter, except for the last day, thank God, because Holy moly it was, I don't, I couldn't have done it for five days pushing you around.
Speaker 2It was a lot.
Speaker 1I mean when you walk around the state fair now, like people don't care, they just walk and walk into you. But when you have a leg sticking out there and anything touching it hurts, people have no idea, people don't care.
Speaker 2Well, and so we had to have like a kid out in front of the scooter.
Speaker 1So people wouldn't run into you. You'd run security out ahead of me, my bodyguards.
Accommodations and Family Dynamics
Speaker 2It was just a lot. So then that was two years ago. So then last year Henry really wanted to show and he had a heifer that he loved. He had a heifer that you loved. And I was like, no, I need a break. Like the state fair before, that was just a lot. And I was like I don't, I want to go to the state fair and enjoy it. I don't want to have to do. I want to go to the State Fair and enjoy it. I don't want to have to do anything extra there. And that's what we did. We went and had a good time. Henry wasn't very happy with me. I just couldn't do it. So here we are. We are going to the State Fair. He's really excited, lucy's excited and I'm really excited to go. I know you are too.
Speaker 1Yeah, I always look forward to Iowa State Fair and all of the foods everything fried on a stick.
Speaker 2Let's talk about favorite foods. What is your favorite?
Speaker 1It's got to be pork chop on a stick from the pork producers for sure, although that chicken tender on a stick last year was really good.
Speaker 2The gluten free yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Those were really good and the tenderloins from Chuckie's I think Chuckie's tenderloins those are one of my favorites too.
Speaker 1A staple is also Cattleman's, absolutely yeah, we eat a lot of beef sundae.
Speaker 2Hot beef sundae, yeah, there's, but from a keto friendly standpoint, the pork chop on a stick is a is a go-to, for sure, and those chicken strips. And one of my newer favorites, the donuts. Is it peaches? I think it's peaches, donuts.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're so good.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't so much get into all of the new foods. Lucy looks at the new foods and I think she already has a plan in place.
Speaker 1There's a whole app you can check out the new foods I mean. So the State fair has a contest. They encourage everybody to come out with a new food every year, so then there's a contest of best new fair food. So lucy has been paying attention to that. So there's also up on top of the hill there's a pretty cool place that had some good food last year yeah, I can't remember what food they had, but I remember the place. It was good beer, good atmosphere they had some fun bubbly drinks.
Speaker 1Yeah, for kids that was fun up there so what are you going to say to the bucket of cookies? So I am not a bucket of cookies fan, so the Iowa State Fair has the famous Barkstales bucket of cookies, and they're not what they once were, I think.
Speaker 2Yeah they definitely have changed over the last 20 years.
Speaker 1It's a bucket of gooey, warm cookie dough, basically.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's not baked enough for my taste, because I like that nice, you know crunch on the outside, chewiness on the inside and it's really just kind of warm dough it is, but it's an iowa state thing it's.
Speaker 1They actually have a separate stand for it. The barksdale family sold it to the state fair, so now there's a separate stand. You go over there it's just like the pavement is just crusted and cookies that people dropped and stuff I also like the the rib shack the barbecue yeah, the rib shack's good and the wraps like the they.
Speaker 2There was this migs wraps for I don't know. I know they were there over five years. I loved their wraps and I don't think they were there last year. I know they weren't there last year.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2They had like an all Iowa wrap and it had pork and corn and, oh man, that was my favorite one. It was yummy, yummy.
Speaker 1Yeah, lots of good stuff at the Iowa State Fair.
Speaker 2We probably just keep going on talking about the fish.
Speaker 1There's so much food there it's not even funny. So yeah, soon we'll be this episode's coming out as we are there, but we'll be heading up with a couple other families that are showing cattle as well. There'll be some other families that are showing some pigs, sheep and goats. There'll be a lot of good stock coming out of lee county. Always is the livestock in general. That's what the state fair is to me is the livestock. I guess that's because what I did, I grew up doing, is going up there and showing and living in the barns not literally living in the barns.
Speaker 1but when I was high school age, there was, depending on year, there's four or five or six different families. We all went up together and showed pigs and had a ball with it. You know, all of us guys are the same age or would stay in the same hotel room. We all got the same hotel, so we'd all stay in the same hotel room. We all got the same hotel, so we'd all stay in the same hotel room. I would hate to be the next guest in that room.
Speaker 2It would have been very odoriferous.
Speaker 1Well, just, you come home and you just kick your boots off and throw your jeans in a corner and it was nasty. Uh, we could also tell stories about dad's sleepwalking and getting locked out if you're listening buster, uh, but a lot of fun was had and we'll have a lot of fun again this year at state fair I'm definitely looking forward to it.
Speaker 2I know everybody in our family is.
Speaker 1So the Iowa State Fair is, I guess, kind of famous for the butter cow. They do sculptures of butter. That's quite an attraction, weird enough.
Speaker 2I think Caitlin Clark is going to. I think they did a sculpture for her this year, maybe.
Speaker 1That was last year, for sure.
Speaker 2I think they have another one?
Speaker 1Do they? We'll find out?
Speaker 2Yeah, we will, will we will report back on the butter cow. What was the sculpture this year? So one of my favorite places is the garden that the master gardeners do outside the egg building. I love to go and see all the different flowers that are there and just see all the pretty colors. That's one of my favorite places. The kids love to go through the little maze, yeah, tunnel, thank you.
Speaker 2I was trying to think of that word when they were younger. It was I. Just I love going through there. That's one of my favorite places to visit.
Speaker 1Oh, he's like the horse shows.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, we always have to go sit in the horse shows.
Speaker 1Seems like they have the Six Horse Hitch National Championship, or maybe not the championship, but part of the circuit there, so that's really fun to watch the Six Horse Hitches big horses. I don't know why I'm always intrigued with that, but I am. I've always loved horses.
Attractions Beyond the Livestock Shows
Speaker 2It is a must for Jesse and he wants his family there. He does love it when our kids have kids you're going to be like all right, grandpa has the house up here. You guys are going to each have a certain day that you need to come, and you will be taking the grandkids to that show, I know, and buying them all the candy that they want. Just so they'll sit there next to you, pump them full of candy, send them back with back to their parents.
Speaker 2That will be it and your dad's. What's your dad's favorite besides the livestock shows? Tractor pulls, the tractor pulls. He goes up every year for the tractor pull.
Speaker 1There was a couple years, maybe a year, I don't know. So the Iowa State Fair always has big entertainment at the grandstand and they decided to not have any motorsports at the grandstand and it was strictly music entertainment, big national entertainment. So there was no tractor pull and it was upsetting to my father.
Speaker 2I don't think it was just your father.
Speaker 1So they ended up building an entire separate area for motorsports and stuff.
Speaker 2They did not realize how many people still like to watch the tractor pulls, but unfortunately it is like hot there.
Speaker 1So they want the tractor pulls in the middle of the day because they got to be done and out of there before the big music act starts at night. So otherwise they'd be too loud my opinion it's in a very poor time of the day especially for the older generations that are watching the tractor pulls yeah, but I guess they didn't ask our opinion today. They should have.
Speaker 2They should have.
Speaker 1They really should have. What were they?
Speaker 2thinking I don't know. We would have let them know what we think.
Speaker 1I'm sure some people did.
Speaker 2I'm excited to go and get some pictures and videos and it'll be fun.
Speaker 1Yeah, so we will report back on how the state fair was and the favorite new food, I guess.
Speaker 2I'll look for. I'm going to look for keto friendly options, since we talked about the keto diet a couple weeks ago there you go. I'm going to investigate that, like where you can go and what you can do, and there actually, are a lot of good options there are for healthy food it's just, you have to have enough willpower to walk by the fried to abstain from the other things.
Speaker 1Yeah, so we will report back on everybody's favorite food. I guess If you've never gone to the Iowa state fair, it's worth going. If you're not from Iowa and you have the opportunity to go, it is. It literally is one of the top state fairs in the country, probably one of the largest, if not the largest, agriculture state fair.
Speaker 2I think actually California is the largest fair and agricultural state. Fair.
Speaker 1I think California is the largest agriculture state fair. Then it makes sense, it's such a large state.
Speaker 2And they have a lot of agriculture a lot of diverse agriculture.
Speaker 1Right. There have been multiple times. It's been voted the best state fair, so my opinion it is.
Speaker 2In Jesse's world.
Speaker 1We are very proud of our state fair.
Speaker 2But I would love to hear, like, what are some of your favorite things to do at the state fair? But I would love to hear, like, what are some of your favorite things to do at the state fair? So, if you could contact us at farmer's greatest asset at gmailcom we will be seeing this before we're we have left the fair, so I'd love to you know. Maybe there's something new that I haven't done there. Uh, so contact us, um, and if, even if you have like a special state fair story that would be fun to hear too.
Speaker 1Or your family traditions? What do you guys do at the state fair?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Whether it be Iowa or your own home state.
Closing Thoughts and Listener Call
Speaker 2Yeah, and we'd love to hear about other states' state fair. I wouldn't mind, you know, after the kids are older and not showing at the Iowa State Fair, like seeing other state fairs.
Speaker 1I don't think I've gone to any other state fair.
Speaker 2I know I haven't, so that would be something fun that we could do. Hit the other state fairs yeah it's like some people go out and they tour all the different baseball stadiums. Maybe you and I need to go do the state fair thing.
Speaker 1That'd be fun.
Speaker 2Yeah, that would be fun.
Speaker 1Where are we going to?
Speaker 2start Iowa.
Speaker 1Shoot, that's funny. That being said, thanks for listening and go out and find us on all of the socials.
Speaker 2Like and share us and tag some friends. Help us spread the word so we can help other farming families.
Speaker 1It's a good day to have a great day.
Speaker 2Bye.
