SCHOLARSHIP DAY 35: My first visit to Creamers and my night of mushrooms!

Waking up at 9:00am is now pretty much the norm for me, so it wasn't any surprise today to go downstairs and find the other hostellers had left, perhaps for early morning flights or their morning university lectures. Sarah and Bill, however, were still in the kitchen and presented to me a present: a tripod that was left by Jack, a young man who has been travelling around Alaska recently. He obviously didn't need it anymore, and so now it will accompany my travels, especially on nights seeing the aurora, where a tripod is most certainly needed for the best photos. Thankyou Jack!

Today was a gorgeous day, meteorologically speaking. A bright blue sky, with only the odd cirrus cloud to break it. With temperatures quite high (15 degrees C) for this time of year, I decided to make the most of it and make my first visit to 'Creamers'.

Creamers is not high on the list of Alaska's native cultural pursuits, but it does offer the visitor the chance to escape the hub and vibe of the attractions and allows them, without a fee, to relax. It's basically a bird observatory, which in the height of summer, homes birds that have migrated from all around the world: South America, South Africa, Phillipines and India; the list goes on. But Creamers is not a building where you can see birds caged up. On the contrary, it's flat farmland, composed of about 10 or more separate polycultures. Visitors can take a pair of binoculars, stand, and watch the birds or they can walk their dogs along the many nature trails. There are so many trails, and I decided to explore the 'Farm Road Nature Trail' today. Despite its name, this walk was totally through arable farmland.

I couldn't believe how flat this land was; the landscape looked just like the ones from my English home county of the Norfolk Broads. One large flat farm, with just a mountain range in the background to break the horizon.

Creamers Farmland practices as many sustainable farming techniques as possible, most of which are common in England. Crop rotation is one such method; shallow rooted plants are replaced by deep rooted plants to promote nitrogen fixing and to rebuild soil fertility. A way of doing this is tillage; a farming method that involves digging and overturning the soil. I could easily spot these different polycultures.

Apart from arable farming, Creamers also has a dairy farm. Visible in the distance today, but I will go and visit it up close sometime in the not so distant future. Milk is one of my favourite liquids, as those who know me well, will know, so visiting a dairy will be a real treat.

Just in front of the dairy, you can see a large wash of green; a shallow rooted plant called Bird Vetch. It's an introduced species to North America as it's only native to Europe and Asia, and so here in Alaska, it is an invasive weed. Constant intensive management is required to get rid of it, but herbicides are not sustainable, so Creamers has chosen to leave it be.

At the end of the trail, I had a chance to visit the Alaskan Bird Observatory; a small, wooden hut that stages a shop and a few offices. I got the feeling they are in the progress of transforming the shop into a Raven musuem for this coming Friday's 'Raven' exhibition, because my quick circuit of the premisis didn't turn up anything of major interest, although out one of their windows I spotted a red squirrel chomping on a nut. Cute as it was, I have many photos of them now, and so didn't go out of my way to get my camera.

I haven't yet played around with the panoramic function on my camera, but today's walk through Creamers inspired me to start. Here's my first attempt.

Back at the hostel, I lunched al fresco. It was certainly warm enough, and I spent a couple of hours reading the latest Alaskan news. Norm Phillips, the Mayor Candidate who I spoke to a couple of weeks ago, did not win getting only 45% of the public's vote. Instead, Luke Hopkins was re-elected for another term.

My only other item on the itenary this afternoon, was to go to the 'Mushroom Talk' at the university. Mycological expert, Gary Laursen, talked extensively about his fungi explorations on islands around the Antarctic. Using the full latin names for those he found, I couldn't possibly list them here, but rest assured he has a fountain of knowledge about fungi. I particularly enjoyed his anecdotes from his trips; getting 'caught short' surrounded by King Penguins, finding Magic Mushrooms, and getting his fungi samples stolen by Terns (seabirds.)

I arrived back to the hostel to yet another generous offering from Sarah and Bill and appropriately it was a mushroom dish: mushrooms, tomatoes, rice, chicken, and brocolli.