Hedging and fencing

This weekend 77 herdwick ewes arrived on farm from Borrowdale valley. They had been scanned and the farmer sends all the ones having twins to lowland farms like ours where there is a bit more grass to help them along. We had been planning to do a bit of fencing in the field they went in anyway so on Saturday morning it was all hands on deck, Matty and me taking down the old fence and then Kev and Matt knocking in posts with a tractor-mounted post-knocker - a little bit easier than by hand with a mell hammer. Kev then spent the rest of the afternoon attaching netting and wire to secure the area and hey presto! the sheep can't escape (at least not by that route anyway!).
Today, he has been busy in a different field, forming a planting strip for a new hedge. This is being done as part of a conservation plan and we receive some funding to help with the costs. Hedge planting and laying have to be done from November to March, and our plan has just been approved so we are pulling out the stops to get two stretches of hedge in before the deadline.
The weather forecast is not so good for mid-week so the next couple of days will be spent getting some more of the earlier lambing ewes in the shed.