Digging it! Pete Urpeth’s Peat Cutter’s Blog
This is my vlog about peat cutting in the Isle of Lewis - the vlog will cover one year’s peat cutting cycle from the earliest preparations of the peat banks to bringing the peat home for our winter fire, with a few surprises on route.
In this edition of your favourite peat cutter's vlog, the summer's work is over and we're ready for winter as Kenny MacIver shows us the traditional craft of building a peat stack. If you enjoy these videos, please share and please subscribe!
In which we finally get to bring the peats home from the moor. The drying period has been long, plenty of rain has fallen in the Outer Hebrides this summer, and then we got a window of opportunity to get a tractor out on the moor.
In which we begin the real process of drying the peats out on the moor. Chrissie Bel - who has been cutting and lifting peats since her childhood days on the island, shows the process of lifting the peats with patience onto their edges.
In this episode of your favourite peat cutter's blog - something a little different - an independent review of a peat iron and spade made by Caldwells - with a particular focus on finding good tools to cut peat with on your own.
In which the peat cutting continues on a remote bank, and in which a a unique peat cutting tool gets a demo as the moorland birds gather for the summer
This episode of Digging it! shows us hard at work peat cutting. If you're new to this turf malarkey - watch the pattern of throwing that Norman Charlie uses - a perfect guide to keeping enough space around you and using your energy efficiently as you cut and throw and as your move up the bank.
Episode 3 in which me and my peat-cutting partner, Norman Charlie, finally get to cut some peats, and another bottle turns up buried in the bank. The bottle is a Scottish Brewers Ltd bottle from some time from about 1931 onwards.
Episode 2 of Pete Urpeth's peat cutter's vlog, in which the intrepid cutter attempts to bring a very old peat bank back into use. Music: Kesh Jig / Leitrim Fancy, and The Lark in the Clear Air by Sláinte from the album Sláinte, used under commons license.
Digging It! is Pete Urpeth's peat cutter's vlog. This vlog started as an idea as I made my way out onto the moors for the first day of peat cutting this year, and it will chart the progress of a year's peat cutting in the Outer Hebrides.