PALMER BUZZ: It’s on: P-town transforms to Fair Town

99645 is Fair Town, Alaska

Everything changes up fast when Palmer goes from P-Town to F-town. Changes include traffic patterns, populations, eating habits, visitors, step count, parking places and even post office lines. And that is all part of the fun and funky vibrations from hosting the annual Alaska State Fair. It begins officially on Thursday—but this new little city began rebuilding weeks ago.

International United Nations event

You do realize that there is a major multicultural gathering this week in Palmer? Indeed. We have emissaries from all over the world. Cornish, Sumatra, Turken, Hamburg, Yokohama, Cubala, African, Chinese and Roman poultry are all getting together in the livestock barn. Yes, there are also patriotic Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks, Jersey Giants joining up to make this a complete global community of cockerels, pullets, cocks and hens. The Spanish Buttercup Chicken is also representing along with the Swedish Duck and Pilgrim goose. It is an international event with lots of discussion. And interestingly—everyone gets along.

10,000 entries

This is the potential number of home-crafted, homegrown and homemade entries that will infiltrate the Fair, along with the nearly 300,000 visitors who will admire all the presentations. Yes, fair exhibits are a big deal and serious business. This is the epic Show and Tell of the year and thankfully doesn’t include plastic manufactured crap from China.

Each of these homemade exhibits is the cumulative result of millions of tiny tasks that makes up the Alaska State Fair presentations. Thousands of little normal Alaskans do thousands of little jobs to make thousands of moments to share with thousands of visitors. Bead work, flower growing, craft projects, wood working, animal care, wine making, quilt sewing, and dozens and dozens of other exhibits showcase the cumulative efforts of local makers.

Noisy fish

The hordes of salmon coming up Bodenburg Creek are raucous and noisy. They get together in bunches and plunge upstream in squadrons and make such a racket, they’re keeping neighbors awake at night. Apparently the need to spawn — trumps — the need for silence.

Mat Su Recovery Summit

Friday is the day of the Mat Su Recovery Summit at the Mat Su College. This is a worthy all-day program dealing with the regional opioid epidemic and focusing on strengthening our community’s collective voice and expansion of recovery opportunities. Senator Dan Sullivan will be there along with other important leaders and panelists. Last year’s summit was an eye opener and it is good that progress is being made in this critical area.

Friday is Coffee Day at Brew HaHa where 50 percent of all proceeds will benefit the Palmer High School Cross-Country Running Team. So drink up and feel good about it.

Friday is also the Alaska Job Corps Center’s National Graduation at 2 p.m. If you have never attended, try it. These graduations are unforgettable and will make you proud of your tax dollars at work.

Finally Friday is the first day of the Certified Master Composter classes at the most beautiful landfill in the world — on 49th State Street, beside the Recycling Center and Animal Shelter. Learn about worm bins and other decomposition secrets. Check in with the Mat-Su Borough Solid Waste Division.

Saturday is the Alaska State Fair Parade in downtown Palmer. A Cooking Demonstration Class featuring Alaska Grown and Wild Game is from 1-2:30 p.m. at Non-Essentials.

And The Fair pretty much upstages everything else for the following 10 days. So give it up for the fair festivities.

Lastly, a note to all—the Palmer Pool is now Online at matsugov.us-lifestyles.