User talk:Islandhopper

Hey Islandhopper - JAStewart here from the forums at Shetlink!

i didn't you know you were german - its a beautiful country. I have been there 3 times.

Hoswick Picture

Hi, I replied to your Hoswick picture problem in the Forums, let know if that helps, or if i've misunderstood! - Clintwiki 14:47, 11 July 2006 (BST)

I did some editing

Look who is number three... JAStewart 12:00, 15 July 2006 (BST)

Still Alive

Hallo, are you still alive? You haven't done some editing in a while! =) - JAStewart 15:19, 3 August 2006 (BST)

I am!!! Did some copies of abaut 200 Shetland pics ... ;-)

Beside this, we had an ugly edit war on the de.wiki and the Scotland and Orkney context and I have tried to do my best, not to have a similar discussions within the Shetland section ... I will be back in a minute ... a week or so ... ;-) Islandhopper 23:12, 5 August 2006 (BST)

pic 1

Sullom Voe OT as seen from Tirvister?

If the big house near the Beach ist the Haa of Bardister (with some kind of scaffolding??

pic 2

Leslie Johnson, formerly of Queyon. I believe he is now resident in the Unst Care Centre. THX to Selkie from the Shetlink Forum

I am asking for his name.

The story: On my last visit to the White Lady of Otterswick (1999) he – up in his 80s – dashed down the hill on his squad and jumped over the wall of his planticrue up the hillside above the lady. Later on we had a nice talk and he told me his story about Bertha. At that time he was the last / one of the last survivor(s) of the local rescue team, then a teenager, when the Bohus went on the rocks.

Information just for my private use and the pic may be deleted later, if it causes any problems (I don't have any legitimation by him to publish it here) – altough it/he would be my favourite for a gallery of "not so prominent / forgotten local heroes". ;-)

pic 3

Eshaness cemy

Which settlement to be noted?

Voe House

"or: Are there two böds at Voe??? ;-)"

OK, I think I see the confusion here. The Sail Loft is in Voe, but confusingly Voe house is another house in Walls.  :)

Shetland

Hey are you planning on Shetlanding it up anytime soon? JAStewart 17:25, 19 March 2007 (MDT)

Yeah, it's time again ;-), but I had to postpone my plannings due to health conditions of my mum. She want's to go North again, too, but in her 88th now and with regards to some medical provisions we have to plan carefully ... ;-) Islandhopper 17:34, 19 March 2007 (MDT)

The pic to the left is just by chance ... :-D Islandhopper 17:35, 19 March 2007 (MDT)

Dutch Luggers and Yagers

Hi Wolfgang, I found a picture in a book of Dutch Luggers in Lerwick harbour, and although there was no mention of Luggers in the text, there was mention of the Booms transferring their catch to Yagers. Are Luggers & Yagers the same??? Any info??
Robbie 14:47, 20 March 2007 (MDT)

Your Pictures correction

Hi, Your picture "North Yell - View over Breckon", the houses in the picture are actually Gloup, I was working on the house dead centre in that pic 2 weeks ago. The sea entrance seen is the entry to Gloup Voe.
Breckon is a little back the road and to the right. :-)
Robbie 03:15, 22 March 2007 (MDT)

Corrected ... THX Robbie Islandhopper 04:18, 22 March 2007 (MDT)

Troubles with Templates

I've had a go at Template:WildFlowers. But the closest i've come is to push the top down 25px so it brings it closer into line. It's as if the non-header part of the infobox acts as the top margin of the article. I'll have a think, unless you've had any more ideas... Clintwiki 06:32, 23 May 2007 (MDT)

Update. Sometimes I ought to check the basics before getting all technical ;-). There were a couple of blank lines outside your noinclude block, which showed up as blank lines outside the infobox (therefore in the main body of the article). Clintwiki 06:48, 23 May 2007 (MDT)

Peat

Just had another brain cell moment ;-) Among all your geological data, do you have any info about how peat is formed etc.?
Because of it's importance to Shetland, particularly in the past, it deserves a page or three.
Not sure how the subject could be expanded or linked to other things, but thought it might be interesting to get the technical info down on a page, then perhaps something about peat cutting, drying, etc. on another page.
The possibilities are vast for expanding the subject from the early use, right up to modern machine cut peat, delivered in bags to your door. With in between things about how it was brought home in past times, like pony, kishie, and in some cases even boat, such as across the Loch of Cliff in Unst.
I think it could be an interesting topic for foreign visitors to the site who don't know about it.
What do you think??
All I know about it really is that when I cut peat, it was bloody hard work. I gave up and started using coal.. :-)
Robbie 08:18, 22 June 2007 (MDT)

rofl ... ;-) I'm just in the peat for our SchottlandPortal website because peat is important for the rest of Scotland, too ... So, by the end of the month I will have "The nature of peat" ... "Peat development in historical times" ... "Traditional peat cutting and use" ... a little about traditional peat cutting tools and related tools like tusker and kishie (but not much) ... but the worst thing: All my "good" peat pics are from Orkney, only little stuff from Shetland Islandhopper 08:30, 22 June 2007 (MDT)

We thought that all the peat things can have an all over category ; "Peat", then we can put all about peat and the pics in there..., Robbie just found some olds ;-), what do you think ???
Cheers , Oddrun 10:15, 22 June 2007 (MDT)

great ... ;-)Islandhopper 10:19, 22 June 2007 (MDT)

Was in a local village museum and took a little lesson in peatcutting tools ... ;-)

• 

  Tool 1

• 

  Tool 2

• 

  Tool 3

• 

  Tool 4

• 

  Tool 5

Well, that are all north German tools but I do know all of them from Scotland and Shetland, too. Must be an international community of peat folks ... ;-)

• Tool 1: I know as flaughter or flaughter spade from Sutherland. We call it turf knife.
  It is use here on "dead" peat bogs which show no peat development anymore and which are thus overgrown with grass or heather; one might use a normale spade (tool 5) but I was said it would be a damned hard work when there is a bigger share of heather.
• Tool 2: Looks like that rutter thing which I know from Caithness & Sutherland in particular; we call it a turf spade. It is use to cut a line behind the turf face to make it easier to work with a tushker. It is vertically hacked into the turf layer, then turned to the side and pulled out again with this sichel like and very sharp edge cutting through any kind of roots which were not cut on the first hit. It is also used to remove top layers of turf not suitable for cutting and drying for fuel.
• Tool 3: a tushker, isn't it? We call it peat knife.
• Tool 4: is that thing of which I don't know the Shetland/Scottish name but which I have seen. We call it a peat spade. It was used on deeper and richer ("fatter") peat layers to make it easier to work the tushker.
• Tool 5: a normal spade
• I was than told that there was a 6th tool: a turf fork, a fork with 5 flattened blades not "needle like pins".

Tools 1 to 3 are traditional, tool 5 is more or less universal, but tool 4 was developed in the 19th century when indusrial demands for peat as fuel increased drastically but no machinery was yet invented for an automated peat cutting process.

Our German word Torf is split to 2 different qualities: One refering to (Weißtorf) "white turf" or simply "turf": That are the upper layers with a higher share of "organic" material not suitable for good fuel - it was given to the gardens to produce a better quality of soil or thrown aside. Peat for the best fuel quality is called Schwarztorf (black turf). Turf of the best quality was mostly wone from raised bogs, peat from blanket bogs.

Tool 1 is essentially a Shetland Flachter Spade, the blades of those I've seen were probably a little wider in the cut than that one would appear to be, and tended to be made from a uniform depth of steel, rather than steadily deepening steel as it nears the shaft as in the image. Such differences probably had more to do with an individual Blacksmith's "personal" choices when making the tool than anything else though.

Tool 2 I have seen one example of once in Shetland, but cannot now recall where. I've never seen it being used, and I *think*, if I recall correctly, I was told the one I saw had been obtained to use cutting ditches by hand in a bog. Not a tool I have ever seen or heard of being used for peatcutting.

Tool 3 is identical to a Shetland Tuskar

Tool 4 we have nothing like that at all as far as I am aware. Our deeper best quality peat layer tends to be relatively wet, and almost always cuts as easily as warm butter with a tuskar. In fact it can be so soft that the hardest work cutting it is steering the tuskar as there is mininal resistance, and also keeping it balanced on the tuskar transporting it to a chosen drying spot, as it can be as wobbly as jelly.

As a rule only the very minimum of moor was discarded when casting peats, if it could stick together well enough to cast, it was dried for fuel. The top peat cut is notorious for poor quality, that was where the "mossy paets" came from, they generally were mostly used to bank up a fire overnight etc, as at best most simply smouldered. "Horse Flesh" is also notorious in the top cut, it burns well enough when dry, but was extremely tough to cut. It's simply a layer of leafy plants (mostly grass) which are still just recognisable as such, and is almost as difficult to cut through as old dead matted grass is. The next layer is usually average quality peat, which is relatively easy to cut, but could have patches where "tawey paets" came from, essentially the remains of old fibrous plant roots and stalks in the moor, which you could cut through without much bother, but you could feel (and occasionally hear, the cut) a very slight jolt pass through the tuskar handle with each one. The last 30cm, or in some cases more of moor just above the bedrock was the top quality stuff, the "bloo paet and clods", as I said, like soft butter, but often had old tree branches/roots embedded in it in some areas.

One or two people would use a fork for the turf, but it was an uncommon practice, and I've never been aware of anyone using a folk specificlly constructed for it, those who did it usually just used a standard design round toed fork. Most commonly folk would completely loosen each turf with a spade, then when they had a worthwhile amount lying loose but still more or less in their original position on top of the bank, they'd go down and stand in the greff and simply grab the turfs by hand and place them in their original order like laying floor tiles, over the top of the bare moor in the greff that last years peat crop had been cast off of.

Ghostrider 17:52, 23 June 2007 (MDT)

Agree with all Ghostrider said. One small point. the tushkers I had didn't have the bit on the side for applying foot pressure. Wish they had in one of my banks which was all horse flesh. ;-)
Robbie 11:53, 24 June 2007 (MDT)

We're all in this together, islandhopper, with different skills and specializations. And we all need to check each other! tanks t'de Ex-isle

Just a quick follow up on the point Robbie mentions concerning a 'heel' for applying foot pressure on the tuskar. The Shetland Tuskars I've seen and used had one, but not exactly like what's in the image. What's shown in it is the kind of heel commonly seen on Shetland spades, the ones on the tuskars I've had experience of were a long low triangle shaped strip of hardwood screwed on to the side of the handle, the tapered end starting at the top edge of the iron, and slowly widening over 30 cm or so of length up the handle of the tuskar to give an tiny approx 2 cm x 4 cm "heel" at the top for a foot pressure pad.

I don't know why Shetland ones were this way, but I could see a heel like the one in the image being a bit of a nusiance for bumping in to things, partiularly when building your peat dyke.

Ghostrider 18:34, 28 June 2007 (MDT)

Just thought I'd 'bump' this up again, in case you'd forgotten about it ;-) I think I have a few pics, from the various museums, of tushkars etc.., still have to sort through them. They may help.
Robbie 15:44, 4 September 2007 (MDT)

I've well registered the one allready uploaded by Oddrun ... but the whole peat thing is still under construction ... a lot of that damned physical geography stuff forgotten, now 30 years ago; in those days I didn't like physical geography but getting older its more and more an interesting part of the journey back to the roots ... ;-) Islandhopper 15:52, 4 September 2007 (MDT)

I wonder--where did these tools come from? Were they imported or were there any metalworks on the islands? Morula 09:39, 5 September 2007 (MDT)

Morula,
All the tools were manufactured locally. Most communities had a 'Smiddy' (Blacksmiths), where these tools were made. Some folks probably made their own, as none of them were difficult to make.
The last old Smiddy, I think, was in Lerwick, next to where the Wheel Bar is, it closed sometime in the early 70's. Although there is now a Blacksmiths at Hillswick, Bruce Willcox Forging, I think it's called.
Many of the tuskars made these days are made on a sort of cottage industry basis by people who have a little metalwork skill and enjoy making things like that. I believew there is even someone making stainless steel tuskars, but not sure who or where.. Wish I'd had one of them instead of my old rusty one ;-)
Robbie 10:17, 5 September 2007 (MDT)

I started a photo group on peat on flickr if your interested. Tool number 3 is called a Tairsgeir in the Western Isles coming from the same root as Tushker JamesMorrison

Catpund - Cunningsburgh

Sorry to dump another subject on you, but, you are our resident geology expert..  :-)
The Cunningsburgh page could benefit from a bit about the history, geology, etc. of the Catpund area.
Perhaps the subject may also provide useful information for the Geology category.
I found this link when I was looking for something else:

• http://www.fettes.com/Shetland/Geology_Shetlland/catpund.htm
  Robbie 09:43, 16 July 2007 (MDT)

...;-) at least the Viking statite quarries are on my list, both, Catpund and Muness ... but first I have to finish with that Dundas-Baikie-Balfour thing ... Islandhopper 10:04, 16 July 2007 (MDT)

Clack Mill Pictures

I think it was you that wanted these. Hope they are OK...
All are taken at the croft house museum mill, except the ruins which are on the Mill Burn below Scousburgh.
Cheers.
Robbie 22:13, 13 August 2007 (MDT)

PS. We also have pics of the Horse Mill at Hagdale, if that is of interest..
Robbie 22:15, 13 August 2007 (MDT)

THX Robbie, they are fine ... ;-) I'm doing a little article about these "Shetland mills" as they were called by Low. And, yes, I think we should have the horse mill, too ... ;-) I don't remember them from Shetland ... and have there been wind mills in Shetland, too ??? Islandhopper 02:48, 14 August 2007 (MDT)

The horse mill was a 'one off' I think, used to grind mineral. We have a little info about it and a couple of pics, I'll upload it as soon as possible.
Windmills..... Only one I know about was the one on Havra which was used to grind corn as there was no burn for a clack mill on the island. We borrowed a book from my sister which may have some info about that, I'll see what I can find out..
Robbie 07:49, 14 August 2007 (MDT)

Right, the horse mill at Hagdale was part of the Chromatite quarry there ... but have there been "horse engine houses" (as they are called on the bigger Orkney farms) for threshing, pumping &c ??? Islandhopper 08:35, 14 August 2007 (MDT)

Ooops,, missed this somewhere in the middle of a Shetland holiday hangover... ;-)
No, I've never heard of any other type of horse driven mill in Shetland..
Robbie 15:50, 4 September 2007 (MDT)

Brochs website.

Maybe you've found this already, but thought I'd better post you the link just in case..

http://www.rockstanza.info/

Note.. OK on IE6 but won't work properly on other browsers.

Cheers,Robbie 14:06, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

PS. I've added it as a link on the Brochs of Shetland page as it leads to some good pictures.
Robbie 14:30, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

That's a nice site with good pics. Found it some time ago when I was upon a map of all Broch locations but lost the link :-( Map is 50% done but waiting ...

I'm more or less off now. Have to get up at 0400 in the morning to ride to "my" dentist at Halle University (200 miles) and from there to our editors meeting over the weekend. Well, da most interesting thing is the Barbacue and da Whiskytasting: 8 different Scapas from 18 to 68yrs are on the list followed by a selection of beef cuts from Highland cattle and Galloways (comming directly from a farm in Switzerland owned by one of our members) along with jacket potatoes, buttered and grilled turnips and sweats, with me doing the dessert: apple crumble from apples out of my garden with cream from Crantit creamery, Orkney ... :-))) ... some kind of salad for the veggies ;-) ... Hope the ruins of my jaws will by then be working again ... cheerio :-))) Islandhopper 15:12, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

Have a good weekend, and don't have too much whisky,, you'll only make me jealous ;-)
I left a message on that brochs website for Chris, saying that I had added his link to our page, and suggesting that he might want to link back to us.
Cheers,
Robbie 15:16, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

Islands needing Graphs ;-)

Well you did say to let you know,,,
The following don't have graphs. Most also need info boxes.
I will add the info boxes over the weekend, then you can add the graphs when you have a chance.

• Burwick Holm
• Greena
• Green Holm
• Grunay
• Gruney
• Hascosay
• Hoo Stack
• Hoy
• Lamba
• Little Havra
• Little Holm (Scatness)
• Little Holm (Yell Sound)
• Little Linga
• Muckle Roe
• North Isle of Gletness
• Peerie Bard
• Ve Skerries
• Vementry

Cheers,
Robbie 11:23, 22 November 2007 (MST)

OOOooohhh ... dat looks like that I forgot to upload a complete series ... Vaila, Fair Isle, Bressay etc. are done ... Have to check, whether they are done but not uploaded ... or already uploaded but not placed into the boxes ... :-))) No prob at all ... ;-)Islandhopper 14:24, 22 November 2007 (MST)

 :-) Yes, not like you to miss as many as that.. HE HE!!!
I haven't had as much time recently to check my 'must do' things either.
I've identified a few more I want to add, so if you don't pick them up as I add them, I'll drop a note here and you can do them when you have time.
Some of them may suddenly appear under a 'Baa's & Skerries' category.. In which case, don't run in a state of panic, expecting another 5000... I'm not wanting to start that category yet, but a few, including some we have already, may need to fit in both categories. ;-)
Robbie 14:33, 22 November 2007 (MST)

Yepp, just checked Bressay, Brother Isle, Burra ... graphs do exist but there were no infoboxes on the sites ... that's why I probably didn't link them, when I did upload them ... or in the case of Burra: just Burra or West Burra and East Burra ... We will get it sorted out ... ;-) Islandhopper 14:38, 22 November 2007 (MST)

I've updated the list above. These are currently the only ones for which there is no graph, but I have added the tables.
I'm still creating pages for the graphs you put up before, just another 10 to go. ;-)
Robbie 06:26, 2 December 2007 (MST)

Not sure about the Lingas ... all together about a dozen??? The rest of the missing graphs will be uploaded next weekend the latest ... :-) Islandhopper 17:05, 3 December 2007 (MST)

Talking pictures

I've tried to make talking pictures from some of the panorama pictures we've taken this last year. But the only picture program I have which can do the job totally buggers up the resolution of the image. What program do you use?
Or if it's a program which I don't have, or can't afford, perhaps I can put the names on using my program and then you can use that information to make a decent image if I also email you full resolution panorama.
Robbie 15:00, 19 November 2008 (MST)

Robie, I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro vs. 8 ... more recent versions are sold now as Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 (say 12). Version 8 as a free download available here ... about 220MB download, approx 350MB on disk ... but no problem if you e-mail your pics and notes about what is where ... ;-) Islandhopper 07:17, 20 November 2008 (MST)

Thanks. I've downloaded the free trial version of Corel, and will have a play with it over the weekend to see what it can do. Both me and Da Peerie Trowie have been looking at buying some new picture handling software, so this may be the answer.
If I fail with this, I'll do a rough image using the software that I have, and understand, then mail it to you with a full resolution image, so that you can do it properly.
I would imagine you can stand by for an email early next week as I'm rubbish at new technology these days... Think I'm, getting too old to learn new tricks. ;-) :-))))
Robbie 10:57, 20 November 2008 (MST)