Mercer fair screams for ice cream

CELINA - Aiming to beat the heat at the Mercer County Fair, families stampeded to the Cooper Farms Entertainment Tent Friday afternoon to get a refreshing frozen treat and the lowdown on dairy cows.

As part of AGtivities with Ava, a program designed to make farm-to-table connections, including highlighting the role agriculture has in food, families made ice cream from scratch.

Ava Knapke, an ag education liaison and volunteer coordinator intern with the fairgrounds, led the activity, which included combining heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla into a bag, sealing it closed and shaking it with another bag of ice and salt.

"Ice cream is so much fun, but what makes ice cream so enjoyable to have?" Knapke asked the excited and hungry crowd. "What is the main ingredient of ice cream?"

"Milk!" a chorus of children yelled back.

When Knapke asked the children what else is made from milk, they peppered in answers like cheese, butter and yogurt.

"Milk can make ice cream, butter, yogurt and cheese, which all tastes different," Knapke said. "(That) is so weird because it all comes from milk. That's why I think milk is so awesome and cows are so amazing - that they create so many different things."

Mercer County is home to 24,000 milk cows, Knapke said. A dairy cow produces between 80 and 100 gallons of milk and more than 2,300 pounds of milk a year.

In no time, kids were either enjoying spoonfuls of fresh, creamy vanilla ice cream or slurping the slushy mixture straight from the bag.

Knapke said the activity is "essentially a change in matter," in which the salt makes the ice colder, several degrees below freezing, and cools the mixture enough to harden into a solid.

The journey from milk to ice cream is a scientific process.

Cows are milked two to three times a day, depending on the farm management, according to information from National Agriculture in the Classroom. The milk is pumped into a cooling tank and transferred to another facility where the cream and milk are separated. Cream, milk,and sugar are combined and then pumped into a pasteurizer, where it is heated.

"The hot mixture is shot through a homogenizer where pressure breaks down the milkfat into smaller particles," per the information. "This allows the mixture to stay smooth and creamy. The mixture is sent to a freezer with spinning blades that force air into the mix, which prevents the ice cream from freezing solid."

Friday's activity was the second of three events.

On Thursday, kids created a visual profile of soil layers using pudding, Oreo cookies, chocolate chips, green sprinkles and gummy worms.

On Wednesday, as part of kids' day, Knapke will teach kids about mixing a proper feed ration, using trail mix as a metaphor.

Thursday and Friday drew significant crowds, so much so that there were not enough supplies for several children.

"It's always a lot of fun," Knapke said. "Since we only do it for three days, it's kind of hard to pinpoint the (turnout) the day of the fair. I had a lot of kids yesterday with the soil profile, a lot of kids today and then I'm doing one on Wednesday (for) kids day. After the fair, I'll be able to really pinpoint how well we did and see what I have to work on."