My mother and father, they used to have all the little animals.
Everyone that had a sick animal or a young animal that they
found, native animal, they'd bring it along to Una and she'd rear it.
And there was emus and baby foxes and kangaroos and wombats.
She had a few birds, ringtail possums.
I virtually grew up with emu.
There was three originally.
They came from Cobbanah.
I think I was still going to school, about 1963-64.
Bill Robbie at the time was a forest commission worker.
He found them up in the bush and he brought them to my mother.
They were in a cardboard box, little striped things.
The postmistress at the time wanted one and she just put in
her hand and took one out and that happened to be the female.
There was two of them floating around the place.
They just thought they were part of the family farm out there and
they used to just wander around the paddock.
They both used to get around with dad in the paddock.
If dad was irrigating, Dad had a Landrover and they'd pinch
things out of the back of the Landrover, like a hammer or a
pair of pliers.
They were sort of a little bit mischievious in those early days
and he'd be watering and they'd get in the channels and sort of
wallow around in the channel in the water, have a bath and we
saw a different side to them really.
They are quite playful.
One disappeared, about 30 year ago, left the other one and he's
been there ever since.
And people drive past and pull up and have a look and feed it
and go off and it's just been part of the place for the last
60-odd years.
We didn't realize how old it was.
We thought 'oh gee, he must be getting pretty old now'.
And he's got a bit of arthritis and he has a bit of trouble
getting up and down but he still gets around.
But, we started to think about it and then I dragged out get a
few photos and there's a photo of him.
I took a photo of me brand new Holden car which I bought in
1965 and I took the photo about 1966-67.
And here's the old emu, large as life in the background.
So we started the count off from that as long as we can remember
we've had an emu
Peepee.
What do you think has been the sacred to Peepee's longevity?
I think maybe because he's a male emu and the male emus were
isolated anyway because they reared the young on their own.
And I think they may be used to living in isolation.
He eats bits of chopped up apples and fruit and a bit of
bread, but I think he just lives off the grass.
Runs around with the cattle at times but some of them, he is a
bit frightened of them, because they charge him a bit so he
keeps away from some of them.
He comes up looking for a bit of food and some of the kids pat
him a bit and he likes to get into a pool of water and he
flutters around in the water at times.
There's the Valencia Creek there, he goes down and wanders
along there.
And he had a mate there for a while, it was the goat.
My mother had a goat and the pair of them would go down the
paddock together.
Like, they were inseparable and the poor old goat after a while,
got that old and died and he was on his own.
When he lost his brother, he just palled up with a goat or
got around with the cattle.
Or sometimes at that stage my father had sheep.
And he just got around with the sheep in the paddock.
Maybe he didn't even know he was an emu, if he was on his own.
He doesn't want to get out.
A couple of times, he got out on the road and he was frightened
and we just walked down with him and he come back in the yard
again, and he just never wanders off.
Got his own little patch and that's it.
He was free to go.
The house gate was always open.
He could have gone to the bush if he wanted to but obviously
he's always been happy where he is.
You seem sometimes and you say 'well gee, getting old, he looks
a bit crippled'.
But then the next time you see him he's as large as life.
He worked out that if he came over near the road fence, people
will pull up and come across and give me a bit of bread and a bit
of tucker and wander off and he's quite happy with that.