bilateral kellerberrin

About 2pm I went in search of Neville. I’d met Neville at the pub on Friday night during Jag the Joker, and we’d talked gardens and worms. He told me that he had discovered a big cache of worms in his garden, and I was welcome to come and get some.

As soon as I went out the front of the craft barn, I saw Pauline talking to Dawn. Dawn was up on the scissor lift painting the finishing touches on the front of her bank building. She and Pip have been working on this project for a few weeks now – it’s been a big process, from spraying off the loose paint flakes with a high pressure hose, sanding it all back, applying filler, undercoat, then finally painting. The bulk of the facade is painted a kind of sandy beige colour. I was curious as to why they had chosen this colour, as the inside of their house is very bold and bright. But now I know. Dawn was saving the best til last – all the highlights on the front of their ex-bank building are detailed in a deep bright blue. It looks great already.

Peter McCabe was there, too. He said he was the “overseer” of the job. He’s been there for more than a week, each day, watching Pip and Dawn work, just standing there, occasionally telling them when they’ve “missed a bit”.

Pauline and I chatted about the idea of an artist-talk to be done by Cristina and myself. I had suggested this idea a little while ago, partly as a way of solving the “so what kind of art do you do?” problem once and for all. Pauline suggested next Tuesday or Wednesday night, in the gallery.

We also talked about the catering for the gallery dinner. It’s funny, but I’ve been thinking more about the catering for the dinner after the exhibition opening than I have about the show itself. That probably tells you something about where my head is at. I feel like the show will take care of itself. Pauline has backed me up in my campaign to get Joe (aka D & J’s King of Fine Foods) to feed us all. As you probably already know, if you’ve been reading this blog for the last week, I have been very impressed by Joe’s food – both Chinese and fish-n-chips. And his home-grown eggs are good too. I like his attitude. I think we should take a punt on the guy.

Pauline told me that there’s no way Neville would be home, since he works during the day, for the water board. But she gave me rough directions to get to his house.

So my worm expedition only got as far as the pavement outside my front door. I went back inside and spent the afternoon trying to work out how best to print out these blog entries so I can start sticking them up in the gallery window for non-computer-users to read.

About five, I suggested to Felena that we get our butts off the computers and go for a walk before dark. We headed east, across the railway tracks, and up towards the grain silos. But she had forgotten that Mick Cole was coming to pick up his slide projector from the gallery at five. We doubled back, and as we crossed the tracks again, David Blair drove past. He did a ewe-y and started talking to Felena about the cinema electrics etc. The light was fading fast, and Felena had to dash off and catch Mick – in fact, at that moment we saw his vintage Jaguar pulling up outside the gallery. David drove off too.

Across the way, Pauline was parked outside the tyre shop. I wandered over to see what she was up to. She was sitting in her car, deeply involved in a heavy telephone call. A four wheel drive pulled up in front of her. It was Neville the worm man, and his wife Chris! Neville leaned out and shouted “do ya want ya worms or not?” That’s Kellerberrin for you. I jumped in Pauline’s car and we followed them up to their garden plot on School Street.

Neville and Chris are wonderful gardeners. At the moment they’ve got cabbages “with the hearts just coming through,” broccoli, cauliflower, eggplants, pumpkins for africa, various beans and capsicum and beetroot. Neville’s attitude is “if you’ve gotta stand there and water one, you might as well water half a dozen.” Most of his harvest is given away. And indeed he had loaded Pauline up with cucumber, capsicum, strawberries and beetroot, a lot of which she passed on to me.

I started digging where Neville indicated, and found worms fat and thin wriggling in the rich soil. As I filled my plastic shopping bag, I asked Neville and Chris about their garden and their work. Neville goes around repairing pipes for the water board (or is it the water corporation?). He’s not a plumber, they have some policy about not employing plumbers. He’s worked for them for about 35 years, and will most likely keep on doing so until he retires. Chris is the school crosswalk attendant – she does the before-school and after-school shift holding out the flags and stopping traffic. The rest of her time is her own, and she uses this time to grow flowers in their garden. Each morning and evening, before and after work, Chris and Neville come to tend their vegie patch.

Neville recommends seaweed – he swears by it – you can get it in a bottle up at the hardware store. He says it keeps the snails at bay and makes the plants robust. But it’s hard to go past the fact that his soil is the key factor is the success of his vegies. The soil is rich and dark and damp. Chicken poo, sheep shit, and cow dung. Chris keeps the rabbit poo for her flowers. She reckons it is particularly good, rabbit poo.

Pauline dropped me off and rushed to reach the co-op before closing time. Last night, I made a simple salad from Neville’s cucumber and capsicum. The capsicum was pungent and flavoursome, and the cucumber juicy and crisp.