12 Years on and still learning

| 12th April 2022
This week Hen Corner celebrated it’s 12th birthday!

Well, it’s a bit tricky to decide exactly when our way of life was birthed, so the date in the diary is the anniversary of our first blog post when we had given a name to our journey and had begun to share our story. Regular readers and course guests will know that a ‘name’ was chosen initially to simply label our preserves to give as Christmas presents, Sara’s Chutney was a bit boring, so we started looking for a name that could encapsulate our life choices to live more sustainably. Having chickens in London was rather unusual at the time, but searching for ‘chicken’ brand names would lead us to fast food restaurants. As our flock was all female, hen became the search term of choice, bringing new results promoting party planning for brides-to-be!

What if we added a location to the name? We don’t live in a cottage or on a farm, but we do live in the corner of the street and when these two words were searched for together, there was tumbleweed online – a brand developers dream! So Hen Corner, as a blog/website/social media profile/YouTube channel and subsequently a full time business was born – Happy Birthday!

We firmly believe that you never stop learning and that new opportunities and adventure are around every corner, so here’s a quick look back at some of the significant ‘firsts’ of each of our twelve years:
2010 First course – Urban Hens – Keeping Chickens In London
2011 First TV show interview – The One Show
2012 First award – Best Honey in London
2013 First free holiday, reviewing Feather Down Farms
2014 First harvest of Italian Peaches
2015 First day of our Micro Bakery

2016 First time butchering a pig with Black Hand Food

2017 First time baking with Richard Bertinet

2018 First TV Show as food producer Top Of The Shop with Tom Kerridge

2019 First Column with Country Living Magazine
2020 First international course Introduction To Bread Making (Virtual)

2021 First book deal – with Pimpernel Press
2022 First incubator hatchings – see below
So lots to celebrate!
Do you want to meet the chicks? We have a few spare tickets for Easter at Hen Corner…

Our Easter celebrations have always been sell-out events and we are really looking forward to guests joining us this year.

Make your own hot cross buns, Easter craft, egg hunts, feed the hens, home made refreshments and *meet the new chicks*

Easter at Hen Corner Saturday 16th April & Monday 18th April Morning:10.30am – 12.30pm 

Family events coming up:

Family Feathers & Fun Saturday 7th May

Bees for Children Monday 30th May

Where Does My Food Come From? Tuesday 9th August

Adult events coming up:

Full Day Bee Keeping Wednesday 20th April, Tuesday 3rd May, Wednesday 15th June

Full Day Making Sourdough Tuesday 10th May, Wednesday 27th July

Introduction To Making Cheese Wednesday 8th June

Other news:

  • We’ve been busy sowing seeds, both in propagators and directly in the soil
  • The Kitchen Garden has had it’s annual path clearing and jet wash
  • Our good friend Thomas has delivered a huge tub of local honey for us to bottle up and sell

Jobs for the week:

  • Andy has grand plans for the lawn, feeding the roots, sowing new seed and flattening out any bumps
  • Start our weekly bee hive inspections
  • Investigate the fig tree in the garden which seems to have grown a second tree????

Thanks for joining us on the journey, let us know how you are enjoying the sunshine…

Sara

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