Pull your kids out of school for the Pennsylvania Farm Show next year

Every year, when the post-holiday lull settles in and I hunker down to winter til the robins return, I recall a magical place that smells of roasted almonds and manure.

It’s the Pennsylvania Farm Show, of course, the best reason to visit Harrisburg in January. Often, when I tell people about the show, that I’m going or just got back, a dead look spreads across their face. Their mind goes elsewhere it seems. I get it. I used to have the same look when I heard about the farm show, but then I went one year, and now I’m a disciple.

I haven’t missed a show in about eight years and, lately, I’ve been trying to recruit friends and families to join me. None have taken me up on the offer because of school, which leads me to my point.

“Take your kid out of school for the day to go,” I rebut. “It’s worth it.”

A few years ago, I took my youngest son to the show and that tough, athletic daredevil was melting over newborn calves and holding butterflies, unable to resist the joy of the place. It was an excused absence in my book. (He’s 18 now and declined my offer to skip school this year.)

On Thursday, I did the same with my 3-year-old daughter, Penelope, with her mother’s blessing.

“It’s educational,” I said.

For example, after Penelope pet fluffy rabbits, including one named “Mike Mulligan,” we learned that rabbit meat is more easily digestible than other meats. Fun!

People ask what there is to do at the Farm Show, whether you could pass a whole day there. They just don’t know. The Farm Show “complex” is massive and no, you likely won’t get to it all in one day. It’s like the South Philadelphia sports complex if the entire area was enclosed, a series of arenas, wide-open spaces, and convention-like halls, connected by corridors lined with wood chips and full of a mind-boggling array of live animals, merchandise, and educational booths. You want to learn about the blight killing America’s chestnut trees, or emu oil, or invasive species and Pennsylvania’s enormous lumber and woodworking industry/culture? You will. You can buy spreadable bacon jam, udder moisturizer, even a... Donald Trump charcuterie board.

Spectators can watch rodeo competitions, barrel racing, country music shows, live calf births, livestock competitions, and live cooking shows. You can fish for trout, snuggle puppies, even pet baby bulls. The food is a draw too, with mushroom burgers, sweet potatoes doused in butter and cinnamon, my yearly brisket sandwich and, of course, the famous farm show milkshakes.

“You can’t miss the butter sculpture, of course,” said Nathan Lesh, state vice president, of the Pennsylvania Future Farmers of America Association.

That’s right. The crown jewel of the farm show is 1,000 pounds of butter sculpted in the image of a dairy cow in a glass freezer. It’s impressive, and different every year, handcrafted by a Conshohocken couple I’ve interviewed before.

“It’s waste butter we get from plants,” they told me. “It’s stuff that’s been extruded or cleaned out, or stuff that’s been damaged, or generally can’t be sold to the public.”

The wildcard, yesterday, was bringing my father, Bob, who is 76. He’s not a fan of walking, per se, but loves playing hooky and loves his grandkids. When I was a kid, my dad took plenty of days off of work to go hunting from dawn to dusk. He approved of my plan to take Penelope out of preschool.

Still, Larry David is one of my dad’s idols, and here’s a sampling of the conversations we had Thursday about all the walking.

“I would never use the incline on a treadmill. I know a guy who did that and had a heart attack,” he said.

I laughed, out loud.

“One guy?” I asked. “Lots of people die in car accidents every day, but you still drive, don’t you?”

Still, my dad took charge of Penelope for an hour while I went to a news conference. He bought her some toys too. I rewarded them both with hot dogs and ketchup and more rabbit petting. My years as a rural reporter have also filled me with some odd knowledge.

“Most of these dairy cows will be major league baseballs someday,” I told my dad.

The farm is full of kids, the parking lot loaded with school buses, the floors jammed with strollers, so my opinion on playing hooky isn’t unique. Some school districts in Pennsylvania have class trips and for the 16,000 students in FFA programs in the state, it’s like the Super Bowl, Lesh said.

Seeing those iconic, blue corduroy FFA jackets everywhere is one of the highlights too and, surprisingly, Philadelphia has one of the largest chapters in the state at WB. Saul High School in Roxborough.

“It’s considered our state fair and it’s the best of the best of all things agriculture in the entire state of Pennsylvania,” Lesh said.

The Pennsylvania landscape might have more barns than churches and agriculture is, truly, a foundation of the state. I’ve been to farms that produce hemp, raw milk, beef, giant pumpkins, wool, and even deer urine. At the farm show, it’s all under one roof and, depending on how old your kid is, you can even delve into deeper lessons, like the impermanence of life. Most of the fluffy livestock we saw will be food soon.

You have a whole year to plan to play hooky for the 110th Farm Show, to prepare your mind to be blown away. Or, sorry, you could go on the weekend (it’s last day this year is Saturday, Jan. 11). Either way, bring comfortable shoes.