Muriel Granuaile (graw-nya-wail), the smallest of our chicks from this past august, spent many an evening on me while Bill and I hung out after the girls were in bed, a splash maran...

Alannah chose her name, deemed she should have two, playing on the water theme as she was a _splash_ maran: Muriel (sea white, sea bright) and Granuaile (an infamous female Irish sea captain from Queen Elizabeth's day) http://www.babynamesofireland.com/granuaile.

Beautiful henny, white with light and dark grey "splashes". Loved to talk to us in low chatty tones like no other chicken we've had in our family...we lost her today to a hawk attack. I know it's just the hawk's nature, but it sucks and we miss her.

Thanks to Courtnay Ozanne and Lizzy for letting me know she was down so we could retrieve her. I know she's a chicken, but she was our pet and part of our family...so I couldn't leave her to be a hawk's meal. And aside from her broken neck, she was still mostly intact, so we were able to bring the girls outside to say their "good byes".

Sadly I don't seem to have a great pic with her lovely plumage displayed, but here are a couple others... the first pic is from early November, Muriel just had a wound on her foot examined and cleaned and was getting a little R&R in my lap before venturing back outside with her sisters. Second pic, around Sept. last year, she's a young pullet (aka, female teenager chicken) having just moved up from her brooder to awesome outdoor digs with the other ladies...