BRACKENMIDWINTER
CONDITION0
WET GROUND0
HEATHER0
BRACKEN0
THE WORKS11 GINGS LEFT
Pick a tool. Space puts it on the cursor.
NINE HUNDRED ACRES OF BLANKET BOG
BRACKEN
Six years, one rotation. Dyke the fire edge, burn the rank heather in small patches, keep the flock off the sphagnum — and understand that a ditch cut today is still draining the bog long after the next keeper has taken over.
ARROWS move
SPACE use tool
1–8 tool
E edge
Q/C hold
ENTER end turn
ESC pause
M sound
No rotation on record.
THE FLOCK IS WAITING
Nothing grows in the pause.
The ground, the fire and the ledger are where you left them.
FIELD NOTES
What the ground does when you are not looking.
- HEATHER
- Left alone it grows into rank: a thick mat with nothing under it and a fire risk. Burned on a rotation it comes back fine and diverse, and light stock keeps it that way. Burned too big it takes the peat surface with it.
- WATER TABLE
- Cutting a ditch drops the water table, and it keeps dropping. Sphagnum dies in a drained bog, wet peat oxidises, and nothing you do in six years puts it back.
- BRACKEN
- It spreads into thin dry ground and smothers the sward. Grazing holds it. So does a wet surface.
- BOUNDARIES
- A dyke stops fire and stock and nothing else. A grip stops stock and burns like thread. A bund holds water up at a tenth of the speed it went down.
Peat is the only measurement that cannot be argued with. Burn small, cut nothing you cannot block again, and keep the flock where the burn is fresh.
YEAR ONE READ
A CLEAN BITE
The year is counted.
THE ASSESSMENT
The board has seen it.
What you leave on the thirtieth of October is what the next keeper inherits.