Layer by layer, little by little, these two paintings are inching ahead in spite of the Central California artist’s desire to park indoors by the wood stove with a book.

The top one is 12×16″, an odd barn along Dry Creek Road, known as the Homer Barn. The bottom one is 11×14″, some perfect oak tree with wildflowers beneath on some perfect day of driving Dry Creek Road, in Tulare County, California’s flyover country. But don’t forget that we feed the world. (And don’t move here either, because we are all fat, uneducated, poor, and the air is terrible.)