Carrying a sack of dried peats to the car

After recording Ingrid cutting the peat from Laurie's peat bank, I recorded the sound of her carrying it to the car, picking up the wind roaming wildly over the treeless landscape, and the boggy wet ground underneath us as we walked. I carried a few peat sacks myself, they are very heavy, and I can only imagine how painful it must have been to take the peats in a keshie, which is a big woven basket with a string that goes round the front of your shoulders. I can't imagine wanting to knit socks at the same time, but economic necessity meant that this is exactly what many Shetland women of the time were forced to do, in order to make a small income from the sale of stockings whilst also doing the work needed to keep the home going (often while the man of the house was fishing at sea). Recorded with Naiant X-X microphones and FOSTEX FR-2LE.