After I built this website, my brother Steve in Missouri was puzzled, and I'm not sure he really believed I knew how to paint or create websites--and then there is the suspicion that he really never really knows what I do out here in California. So just for him, I painted this view of Lanes Prairie, a gorgeous area where our grandparents-(click here) spent their first few years of marriage--The Old Bowles Place. They rented the house and farmed the land until they moved to my great-grandfather's farm a few miles away. William Hearst Bowles was one of the backbones of the county at the turn of the century-(click here), and Lane's Prairie in Maries County, to me, is idyllic. It evokes the feeling of blowing grass and flowering lezpedesa , with creeks to sit by, and plenty of blackberries and cornbread for dinner. My dad's diary from high school talks about ice skating on the ponds in winter. My brothers and I visited this area, a couple of years ago...and when the world seems too crowded, I think, well, maybe Lanes Prairie will remain the same.
Lane's Prarie