Girlfriend is a 4 year old White Rock from McMurray Hatchery.  She was one of 25 "Brown Egg Layer Special".  Well from the first we knew she was "special".

She was always one to jump up on my husbands shoulder to check out his gold rimmed eyeglasses.  It wasn't until a year later that we realized she clucked, bawked and went Ahh and Oooh to herself almost constantly.

A very bossy young hen and even more so as a 4 year old.

One day while my 24 year old daughter, Amanda, was telling her how beautiful her feathers were, Girlfriend said "Aww Thank You!"  I wasn't going to say a thing.  There was complete silence among the humans in the group until my grand daughter, Beth, said,"Did you all hear what I just heard?"

We all looked at each other and started giggling.  Yes we had heard Girlfriend's polite reply.

There are many more stories about Girlfriend, like teaching the younger pullets how to jump on top of the milk cows, grab a horse fly and slide off the cows' flank, run around and do it all over again.

But my best memory of Girlfriend is watching her as she trots along with Amanda toward the garden or the berry patch for all the bugs Amanda can find.  Knowing that I'm seeing a miracle in progress because Amanda had been diagnosed with Leukemia 2 years before and we nearly lost her.

Girlfriend is, of course, Amanda's favorite and all though Amanda doesn't live here anymore, we had to promise; Girlfriend will never be sold, eaten or mistreated in any way.  She has to be here on the farm when Amanda comes home to visit.