Ingrid cutting peat from Laurie's peat bank

All over Shetland people still have peat cutting rights. If you look at the satellite image of this landscape, you can see dark lines running off the track; these are strips of land which have been cut back to reveal the young coal beneath. This is annually harvested in small quantities and used as a domestic fuel to heat the home throughout winter. There are many historic images of Shetland women walking with large keshies on their backs, filled with cut peats, and knitting as they walk; I was interested in listening to the labour associated with the peat harvest, and Laurie's mother, Ingrid, kindly agreed to cut some peat for me so I could hear how this work sounds. This is the wrong time of year to cut peat, as the ground is dry. Normally the work is done in May, when the winter rains have wet the earth through, and when the birds are very much noisier than they are here in this recording! However in spite of these inaccuracies, in this recording you can still hear the graft involved in cutting into the ground, moving the heavy sods across and placing them on the ground (where they will regenerate) and cutting into the freshly exposed peat with a tusker. I kept our chatter in the recording, because although you can't hear everything we say very well (the microphones were on the ground, close to where Ingrid was cutting) the snippets which are captured give some context to the sounds. Recorded with Naiant X-X microphones and FOSTEX FR-2LE.