(Radio Iowa) — The iconic “butter cow” has been a part of the annual Iowa State Fair since 1911 and Sarah Pratt of West Des Moines sculpted this year’s dairy cow — as she’s done each of the past 18 years. “Really any kind of butter works, although if I have access to it, low moisture butter — so butter that’s been churned for a longer period of time — works better,” Pratt says. “I typically used recycled butter, so it in effect does the same thing. As I use it year-to-year-to-year, it reduces the moisture and becomes more like clay.”

Pratt carves a butter cow for the Illinois State Fair and does a butter sculpture for the Kansas State Fair as well. “Here at the Iowa State Fair we have a lovely, very long stretch of cooler, so I can put inside the cooler a cow and also a themed-sculpture,” Pratt says. Pratt marked the 100th anniversary of John Deere during the 2018 Iowa State Fair and sculpted — out of butter — a replica of the “Waterloo Boy” tractor. “It was extremely difficult in the sence of trying to get the scale just right and all the details,” Pratt says, “…all of the intricacies of doing it.”

This year, fair-goers who pass through the Agriculture Building may see the figures Pratt has made to celebrate a long-running children’s television program. “We are very excited to be honoring the 50th anniversary of ‘Sesame Street’ which I grew up watching and also the 50th anniversary of Iowa Public Television, which is the channel I watched ‘Sesame Street’ on, so they kind of go hand-in-hand,” Pratt says. “It’s really going to be a family-friendly sculpture this year.”

Pratt uses about 12-hundred POUNDS of butter for her Iowa State Fair carvings.

(Radio Iowa) — A farm in the Loess Hills of southwest Iowa where corn, soybeans and cattle were once raised is now home to acres of wildflowers and lavender. Mary Hamer and her husband, Tim, run the Loess Hills Lavender Farm near the Harrison County town of Missouri Valley. The peak months are July through September for the undulating ocean of delicate purple flowers. “People are allowed to go and cut a small bouquet,” Mary Hamer says. “Right now, we’re a little short because the first cuttings have been pretty much cut, but then we rebloom until it freezes again. By the end of August and September, we’ll have a nice stand of lavender again.”

The farm hosts events like teas, luncheons and weddings while the gift shop is filled with items like lavender-infused lemonade, lavender cookies and even lavender fudge. “We make all of our own products, lotions, balms and spritzes,” Hamer says. “In researching lavender, it’s an amazing herb that you can cook with, clean with, and heal with. It’s got a lot of great properties in it. Our lotions and balms are good on bug bites.”

The Hamers, originally from the Pisgah and Little Sioux areas, bought the farm ten years ago after spending a few years researching lavender. They were struck by the idea when on the West Coast to visit their son, who was in the Navy. “We were waiting for his submarine to come in and my daughter-in-law said there was a lavender festival in Sequim, Washington, and that’s where I wanted to go,” Hamer says. “We went up and I walked in the field and my very first thought was, ‘I’ve gotta’ do this is Iowa.'”

The aroma of lavender can be intoxicating and when there are acres of the purple plants, Hamer says many people find it’s the perfect place for snapping selfies — or forgetting about technology entirely. Hamer says, “The hills are beautiful and people can come out and just relax and enjoy themselves and maybe find a little inner peace here.”

(On the web at http://www.loesshillslavender.com/ )