Jordans Crossing Gazette

The last few months have been punctuated by despairing efforts to keep our Veterinary Practice connected to the general public by phone and internet. Our Bundanoon Clinic had its number ‘pulled’ by NBN and we were without a phone for 1 month! Our expensive switchboard, installed in March for the purpose of NBN connection, was completely out of order for five weeks (apologies to clients!). Luckily, our whizz-bang switchboard is at present working perfectly off our old ADSL modem. Gone are the days when Telstra, upon hearing we ran an emergency service for animals, would fast-track a repair. Try explaining this to a faults operator sitting behind a screen in Mumbai! Rant over. A very happy lesson about overcoming adversity is provided by a pair of sand plovers who decided to lay their eggs at the rear corner of our hospital. There is virtually no cover on this grassy verge which is 1 metre from the kerb of a Council carpark used by up to 50 cars. The optimism displayed by the pair of birds, who aggressively defend their two green eggs sitting in a shallow hollow in the ground, against anyone who approaches, is a lesson in survival. The Council mow this verge periodically working with the BCA Committee was that it opened up my mind as to how small towns work in providing the good life that we all enjoy here. BCA enables each resident to have a voice, especially by being a conduit to Council when local issues arise. BCA offers the opportunity to join a number of groups, for example, writing for JCG or supporting the organisers of Music@10 or events like Garden Ramble. I never experienced this when living in Sydney. Here I was able to make a contribution to all facets of the community, and it was appreciated and valued. For some time I was secretary of BCA. Getting back to Welcome Packs, what I found over a period of about two years in listening to new residents’ stories was that they really didn’t mean to move here. Each person explained that it happened by chance. Time after time they would say, “Oh, we were only passing through on our way to Goulburn or Canberra to meet up with friends.” or, “We were at a wedding in Bowral and took a drive, or, we were looking for a weekend escape hatch to have a break from our busy lives in Sydney”. This also applied to us. We had no intention of buying here, and weren’t even thinking of moving out of Sydney. We just stopped by chance to have lunch at a local café and explore the town. Within weeks we bought our house. After a while I would tell all our new residents: “You don’t choose to live in Bundanoon. Bundanoon chooses you!” Maybe there is a little magic in the mist! — Carol Townsend Bundanoon chooses you One of the many pleasurable tasks that I carried out when I first joined the Bundanoon Community Association was to distribute Welcome Packs to our new arrivals. Whenever a new person moves in to Bundanoon whether buying or renting we ask their friends or neighbours to advise us so we can arrange to welcome them into the Community with a bag full of local goodies and information: events, sporting associations, local services, and interest groups. The Welcome Pack is an invitation to gradually become part of the community. Being part of this was also great benefit to me, as I had moved from Sydney, not knowing what to expect and how I would assimilate into a small town environment. One thing I discovered after some time of Vet’s casebook  Ken Davidson BVSc (Hons) Lessons in adversity see if this little family has survived. So far, they are overcoming the extreme adversity of breeding in the developed world. As I observe them I realise that my NBN problems are really of little importance compared to the problems of the plovers. I wonder if they become impatient for their eggs to hatch. Bundanoon Vet, beside Bundanoon Butchery and the grass was getting long. So I came to work last Tuesday with four pickets and a hammer to barricade the nest. As I parked the car I was horrified to see that the mowing had already been done. I rushing down the lane, expecting the worst… but the sand plover hen was still sitting on her eggs as if nothing had happened. She must have flown away as the mower zoomed over the nest, amazingly leaving the eggs intact in their little hollow. I check every morning and evening to December 2017 19 jcg www.bca.asn.au