PLEASANT HILL, Iowa — Lots of people love tasting and smelling food at the Iowa State Fair.
But there are other businesses at the fair each year that provide you with some smells you might enjoy, including Kindra Olson's Lavender Life of Pleasant Hill.
“I love my lavender," Olson said.
Olson opened her farm four years ago, after turning the acre of land at her home from a corn field into a patch of land dedicated toward sunflowers, beehives and lavender.
Lots and lots of lavender.
"That little bud turns into a teeny, tiny flower," she explained.
The lavender plants start at buds and honeybees on Olson's farm pollinate the plants, turning them into those "tiny flowers" Olson references.
From there, Olson invites her friends over and they turn the flowers into different lavender products, like the ones they will sell at the Iowa State Fair next week.
"Everything that I take to the fair, I make in the basement of my house," Olson explained.
And this includes Olson's lavender linen spray.
“There's vodka [in it]," Olson's friend Dixie Mumford said with a laugh. "Lots of vodka. The secret ingredient is vodka, and a touch of water, and lavender oil.”
Overall, Mumford says their state fair preparation has "been really fun, because we get to touch every single product. You get your own little scent in it.”
And the small, red barn they sell the finished products in smells just like lavender, even from the outside, looking in.
If you want to want to check out Lavender Life of Pleasant Hill at the state fair, they are located in the John Deere Agricultural Building, next to the honey.