But head counts don't mean much because even with few hands they have helped build a golf course, revive the tennis courts and the cricket pitch, start a local heritage museum, build a bush chapel and plant out the grassy common that serves as the town's square. And when they haven't got anything better to do, they're out weeding and watering the established garden groves. You wouldn't believe this street before, it was bare as a baby's arse. Now look at it. That golf course was built by farmers, they brought their own tractors and cleared the forest.
Money is no object, time is no effort when times are tough.
Along with Byrock, near Bourke, Burcher is hailed as the smallest of the towns to contest the State's Tidy Town awards, to be announced in Tamworth next month. Wagga Wagga, with 58,000 people, is the largest. The Tidy Town competition has evolved from an anti-litter strategy to a competition that measures a community's environmental commitment, as well as its heart. It's more than a beauty contest - it's all about what a community can do with what little it has. Burcher was rated by the pen of Ralph Forinash, an officer with North Sydney Council.