This was hedging and ditching time on the farm, a job not regularly done these days. My mother called it mud pie making for grown ups (men of course).
The thought of this puts pictures of a well-trimmed hedge and a large bonfire made from the piles of cuttings.
As the year progressed, the hedges would grow and the cows would damage the sides and the flow of the ditches reducing the flow of drainage water from the fields, and often, the roads. It was a satisfying thing to do to spend a morning clearing the rubbish from a watercourse and eventually seeing the water flowing easily away.   
Hedges, usually a thick high shrubbery of anything from hazel, oak, thorn, elm, holly and whatever else would grow there, had grown to a large size especially if it had been a warm wet year and was trimmed back to a respectable size.
Many country articles on hedge laying and trimming suggest that laying has to be done every year. But this would depend on the nature of your cows and the state of the hedge, whether they wanted to get to the next field and how strong the hedge was. If they were peaceful animals and well fed, they usually showed little inclination to walk through a hedge - - - unless there was something interesting in the next field  -  that was different and they would go to have a look.
One of the bonuses to ditching was that many of the roadside ditches took water from the fields and it was in the farmers interest to keep them running freely. While cleaning out the roadside ditch he would likely clear the gully that took runoff from the road. Now days a fair number of complaints are received about roads being flooded after a downpour. It is officially called "ponding" but is often a result of a gully not being cleared of leaves.
If a bonfire was left to burn out at the end of the day there would be shapes of flattened ground where the cows had laid down beside it to warm themselves.
Feed the Birds
This can be a rewarding thing to do especially in the cold weather. People who regularly feed the birds give them a good chance of getting through cold, wet and frosty weather when often natural food is scarce or non-existent. It also gives much pleasure in watching their antics. We had an abundance of apples this year which are stored in boxes in the shed. Several apples are thrown out onto the lawn and come the next morning are always gone. I was pleased to see a Thrush in the garden recently - the first I have seen for some time; Blackbirds and Thrushes love the apples.
Here are a few other tips, which need not be expensive.
Instead of expensive fat pellets, I purchase suet or a slab of lard, grated and kept in the fridge. I daily mix this with breed crumbs; cake crumbs and the leftovers of the porridge bowl and put it on the bird table.
The robins are lined up ready and waiting for the feed to be put out.  Together with the seed feeder and the peanut feeder I think they do quite well.
Why not make your own fat balls.
These are simple to make and much cheaper than the shop bought ones. If you do buy the shop fat balls please remove the plastic netting to stop bird legs or beaks being caught in the mesh.
Fat ball Recipe
Yoghurt pots or similar plastic containers, A slab of Lard or (cost about 33p) or fat from the meat but not margarine.
Melt the fat, add any of the following: seeds, bread crumbs, cake crumbs, porridge oats, bacon fat, cheese, and any left over cooked potatoes etc.
Cool slightly, put into pots and put into the fridge. When completely hard, peel off the container and make a hole through the fat ball and thread some string so it can be hung up. Easy to do and and brilliant for the birds.