The Stoakes family owned this farmhouse and acreage only two miles from the farm on which I grew up near Dysart, Iowa. Now bulldozed to use the land for growing crops, I did numerous watercolors of this acreage before it was cleared for farming.
And yes, the rumor is true: I've been known to pick a mean five-string Bluegrass banjo. Shown here with my Gibson Mastertone RB250. "You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy."
