We have been to Hope farm a few times, and it was good to see the hedges re-growing well, such a transformation from the horrible old gappy thing we started with. Ed and the team have been busy and the farm itself is looking good, they even have a small camp site.
The fun day hedge was at the bottom of the camping / sheep field and it was slightly less cold, everyone grabbed a section of hedge and to keep warm set off clearing and cutting. The hedge was mostly thorn, very brittle, and on the edge of or 3/4 way into a ditch. Some sections contained some pretty big stems. Mike Mason took the prize for grabbing the chunky section, and had a tough day of it. | |
Further down the hedge Phil Hart had a very gappy section of trees to contend with, and it looked like he was creating some chainsaw carving art at one point.
Each section went down pretty well, although Mike and Phil were struggling a bit for time.
Amazingly we had a visitor! Guy MacNaughton who lives in Goudhurst and had shown an interest in hedge laying came along, and saw the process involved and to keep warm we put him to work with a little tidying up and popping on some binders. He was keen to get some training, hopefully he was not put off :-)
Ed and Gemma put on a BBQ in the warm of their hay barn and everyone tucked in.
Because of the low turnout we need to revisit to finish the hedge, we'll figure out a date in the next few weeks, and let everyone know.