Drought

As most who read my blog are aware our community has been in the grips of a drought for the past 3 or 4 years.

Year after year we have put our crop in, only to have the rain dry up in August and leaving us with little or no yield.

We are surviving, and the promise of this year's crop is keeping us going. Here we are in September with crops still looking green and fresh. Even if it stops raining now we will still get a crop, and that's good news.

The bad news is that it's too late for some.

The harsh reality is that we are facing losing some families from our district. And they are our friends. Very dear friends.

I don't want them to go...

Up until now I've taken the ostrich approach. If I don't think about it, it won't happen. Just call me Scarlet O'Hara. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Well, I'm afraid tomorrow is here. At church on Sunday we had a guest speaker who lost his family home and his father in the terrible bushfires in Victoria last summer.

His message was one of hope, and resilience, and that when you lose all you have it makes you realise what is really important. He then played "It Is Well With My Soul" on his saxophone. And that was it for me. The floodgates opened. I was a dribbling mess without a tissue in sight. Eyeliner and mascara everywhere...not pretty.

There I sat in church, with two dear friends on either side of me, both facing losing everything, both with tears streaming down their faces.

And it really hit home.

They really are leaving.

These families will leave a huge hole in our community, and in my life.

And I still don't want to think about it.