Ink is in my blood.
But I’ve never said, “Today I am going to get some ink on my skin.”
However, if I did, I might tattoo this phrase: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Have you ever muttered that, too?
But this isn’t a complaint.
It’s a follow-up on a story that kicked off a little over 100 days ago. At the time, it did seem like a good idea. After all, one of the missions of grandparents is to create memories for their children’s children.
And I don’t believe grandsons William and Fenn NeSmith will ever forget the March evening that I handed them a Styrofoam cooler. When they opened the lid and saw the two oval objects, their eyes were almost as big as the two hefty emu eggs.
Neighbor Clyde Jones had given me two freshly laid emu eggs. He thought our grandkids would enjoy watching them hatch. William and Fenn won the big-green-eggs lottery. The Habersham County brothers, 16 and 14, accepted the challenge and bought a digital incubator. Before long—courtesy of Clyde—they had five emu eggs under their watch.
The success rate for emu-egg hatching is slim. But one day William’s and Fenn’s mom, Heather, came home for lunch and peeked into the incubator. A fuzzy creature had pecked out for its first look at the NeSmith family’s guest bedroom. When William got the call, he shouted, “Hallelujah!”
The newborn
emu had its name—Halle.
William and Fenn wanted Halle to have at least one sibling. That wasn’t to be. Their dad, Alan, built a brooder box for the basement. The family became a research team, learning about emu diets and habits. Did you know that an emu loves eating kale? And one, LiMu, stars in Liberty Mutual’s TV commercials.
Halle spent her days in a 10-foot-by-10-foot backyard dog kennel. At night, she was carried—as if she was a puppy—back inside. That routine went on for several weeks. In 50 days, Halle was 36 inches tall.
That’s when Alan called.
“Dad, it’s time for Halle to come to the farm.”
For more than 100 days, Alan’s family’s lives had pivoted around what had been in that Styrofoam box. So, Saturday was bittersweet for our Habersham Four. I drove up, pulling a trailer for the wire kennel. On the way back, William, Fenn and Halle rode with Alan.
In time, Halle will roam our pastures, adding a Jurassic Park-like feature to our menagerie. But for now, she still gets special treatment. She’s outside in the day, with plenty of shade in the kennel. And inside a barn at night. William installed a “nanny cam” for Halle. We can monitor what’s up with Halle 24/7. Hello, 2025.
Before William and Fenn went home, I took them to thank Mr. Jones. While the boys fed pieces of bread to a pair of 6-foot birds, Clyde gave them a short course on the Jones family’s three decades of emu experience.
Clyde and Peggy Jones had been feeding that pair for 30 years.
As my neighbor talked, I did the math. Emus—survivors of prehistoric times—can live 50 years. Imagine this possibility. One day, the grandchildren of William and Fenn could ask, “Why do we have this funny-looking bird that can’t fly?”
And the brothers could say, “Well, it all started with your great-great-grandpa. He said that it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
