This year is the 58th crowning of Princess Kay. She will take a seat in the "butter booth" during the first day of the fair to have her head carved in butter. After her bust is complete, with a crown on top, the remaining finalists will each have their day in the cooler. The young ladies bring snowmobile pants and are awarded winter jackets. Young women from across Minnesota strive to be the affectionately named "butterheads." Their 90-pound block of butter returns home with them from the Minnesota State Fair, and they can use it as they wish.

The Minnesota State Fair is always 12 days of fun, ending Labor Day. Over 1.5 million people visit each year, giving it the highest daily attendance for any state fair (Texas has over 2.5 million attendees, but it is a 24-day fair).

You, too, can be a dairy princess.

It's back! For the second year, the Midwest Dairy Association has released the Butter-fy yourself Facebook application: http://apps.facebook.com/butterfy. As the "app" states, let the butter-fication begin!

All you need is a Facebook picture or one to upload from your computer. Midwest Dairy created the app in honor of the Minnesota State Fair tradition of carving the heads of Princess Kay of the Milky Way finalists in, you guessed it, butter.

Midwest Dairy represents 10 Midwestern states as their regional promotion association. You can find more about this year's Minnesota finalists at http://www.midwestdairy.com/0p19a170/2011-princess-kay-finalists-named/. Every Wednesday before the fair begins, the new princess is crowned (August 24, this year).

We've already written about getting out to fairs this summer (Head out to the fair), and we encourage you to go to a few before the snow comes. But, if you're staying home, butterfying yourself is an opportunity you shouldn't miss!

One editor – wearing sunglasses to protect the innocent – took the first swing this year. We hope others will follow. Your choices are dairy princess (shown), butter hippie, butter cow, butter Statue of Liberty, butter bouffant, and butter up (baseball).