summer in my town

If you blink you would pass through my town and not even realise it was there.  Nestled in the valley surrounded by the forrest it is isolated from the prying eyes of the everyday world. 

Its a small community , one small general store, a post office agency, no mail deliveries, one goes down to the local store to collect ones news from the outside world.  By 9pm everyone is home, no late night shopping, no pub, just a small main street and the scattered houses nestled into the forest on all sides.

Back in 1983 our town almost ceased to exist, a firestorm arrived.  the official papers, reports, reviews state 6 dead and 307 buildings lost. But at the time we feared our community had lost its very soul.  But because we are a small community we rebuilt, recovered and vowed to overcome what had fallen.

so its 2011 and as i look around I realise just how well we have done.  We have rebuilt , expanded our community and continued on the path of discovery.  We have watched to procession of people who attempt to settle up here and leave some 12 months later, unable to cope with the distance of travel, the lack of choice one finds within or closer to the suburban cities. 

I have watched the towns located to the north and south expand in many directions, land once for farming now hidden by small housing estates, the main streets re done to reflect the main streets in communities near the larger cities.  Again we are blessed, no farming land to be subdivided,  large tracts of forrest protected and as our protector.

Okay so its a small community and as summer rolls on our main worry is bushfire, yes an ever present awareness that once again it might threaten our survival.  So summer is where my eldest son spends more time on a firetruck or  at the fire station than at home, indeed at least once in summer a bedraggled person enters the house and I demand to see some form of identification just to make sure it is him. 

Summer means hot windy days for days on end and thus one heads to the next town to spend some time at the lake to cool or just to relax.  Its a time of cricket played down the main street, or on the land next to the creek, endeavouring to clear the snakes away first or at least keeping an eye out for movement along the edges of the tall grass that boundaries the playing area to the creek.

Summer  its a few short months of each year, a time where we gather renewing old aquantances,  of recovery from the christmas and new year celebrations and realise how lucky we are to be living here.

So i hope this summer passes without too much concern and atumn arrives bringing the cool changes, wonderous colours to deight the sight and the knowledge that the year is well and truely moving along.