Jasper
This handsome boy is the newest member of our team, meet Jasper! He was listed locally along with his two other siblings. Ann fell in love with him right away. When she showed me the picture, I knew we had to have him. Twelve weeks old in this picture, he has a new home with us and the Barkyard.
We give him all the love and attention we can, along with a heaping helping of patience. We're starting with training, or at least struggling with it. Struggling to keep him out of everything. Struggling to keep him from running off with our shoes. Struggling to get him outside in time and house trained. All the usual struggles with puppies.
At first he seemed to be struggling too, and who could blame him? A new home, a new crate, and new siblings. It didn't take long until he fit right in. Wrestling with his big brother, much to his big sister's chagrine. She's not sure what to think, growling at them to warn them off, as if ready to strike. We reassure her until she's satisfied it's alright.
To see her run and play with him in the Barkyard, chasing after her little brother, and vice versa, we know she's happy he's here. It's as if she knows she has a new rough and tumble playmate. It's a heartwarming sight to see all three of them chasing each other around the Barkyard! Hard to believe he's been with us nearly a year now, as of Christmas 2023.
Kai
This pretty girl is Kai! She needed a new home when her original mom, undergoing cancer treatment, could no longer care for her. Now she's "small" compared to the rest of the crew, weighing in at just sixty pounds of blessed cuteness, with her "crink ear" and "curly-Q" tail.
We say hello to her as we give her all the love and attention we can, struggling to put her at ease through all the changes to everything she knows. Her "world", as she knows it, was gone in an instant. I can't imagine how she feels having been away from her mom, briefly united, only to see her no more... Now in a totally new setting, with total strangers...
At first she seemed to be mourning, and who could blame her? To see her run and play again, chasing after her big brother Rocket, we know she's happy to be here. And he's passing along his bad habits in the process! Well, barking at the mailman he came by honestly, learned thanks to his big brother, Brigel, and passed down through his "Big Sister", Maya.
Sadly, Brigel crossed the rainbow bridge two years ago now, and neither he nor his sister are with us any longer. Kai is just what we need to warm our hearts and get back to making our Barkyard the place we all want to be!
Brigel
This handsome hunk was Ann's birthday present, from a pup of about eight weeks, when he was no more than a five pound handful of fluffy cuteness. He was nearly a hundred pounds of unstoppable strength. Thank goodness!
We say thank goodness because when he injured his knee at "doggy daycare" we struggled with whether to put him through all the complications of replacement surgery or get him a custom fitted knee brace to let him heal "naturally". We opted for the latter, and we were glad we did!
To see him run and play again, we knew he was glad we did too! We nicknamed him "Big Brother", a role he's played for both Klaus and Rocket, passing along his bad habits in the process. Well, barking at the mailman he came by honestly, learned thanks to his "Big Sister", Maya, no longer with us.
Sadly, he crossed the rainbow bridge two years ago now, mid June. Our second Christmas without him and we continue to struggle with his loss. The Barkyard just isn't the same without him. Coming soon we'll add a memorial page, dedicated to his much too short life here with us.
Klaus
This is Nick's boy, Klaus, our "grandpup"! The two of them are inseparable. They go to Sonic together. They go for BBQ together. They go for ice cream together. Inseparable.
Klaus is always happy to see us when we visit. Most of the time I'll just sit right down on the floor with Klaus first thing in the door. He gets so excited to see grandpa he's knocked me over, and more than once!
He and Brigel would visit each other and play Jolly Ball. Brigel was his big brother long before Rocket came into our lives. They didn't really play "together" though. Each had their own toy, usually more interested in that than each other. But it was fun to watch them wear themselves out, tongues lolling out the side of their faces.
Rocket was originally Klaus's companion before he came to stay with us. They interacted with each other much more than Klaus and Brigel did. But Brigel was only a guest, not a resident, like Rocket. Klaus would get the "zoomies", running around the yard like a wild child, and Rocket would join him. What a sight!
Rocket is more aggressive than Brigel though. Klaus had to fight for each and every toy, Rocket snatching it if left unguarded for a moment. It wasn't long before toys Klaus had for months or years were shredded by Rocket in minutes.
All that aside, it was soon apparent that Rocket's arrival had changed things between Nick and Klaus. They have a special bond that was in jeopardy of being lost, with Rocket in the middle. So we invited Rocket to come stay with us...
Rocket
We adopted this "little" cutey from a friend I used to work with. When we first met him, all he did was bark at me. Nick stepped up, walking him on the lead to gain his trust. The two of them hit it off right from the start. Fifteen minutes later he joined our family. He was Nick's Christmas present of sorts.
He stayed with Nick at first, because he wanted a companion for his boy Klaus, but the bond between them suffered as a result. The two of them were inseparable... Until Rocket. Klaus seemed to lose interest in everything, content to stay in Rocket's shadow. When Nick expressed remorse with his decision, we took him into our home.
Thank goodness! Shortly after welcoming him, it was obvious he was losing weight, even after Ann ruled out everything that it wasn't. Food allergies? Not enough of this? Too much of that? Grasping at straws! He continued to lose weight, so emaciated his ribs were showing. We worried we'd lose him. Then the vet finally made the diagnosis: Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency, or EPI for short. His body can't digest food!
Poor guy. It explains why he kept losing weight no matter how much we fed him. Without supplimental digestive enzymes with every meal, he was slowly starving to death! Now he's over eighty pounds and still gets the "zoomies", as wild and out of control as a hot rod at the race track! He belongs here with us now, but it's obvious every time Nick visits, he still thinks of him as Papa. I'm just the guy that spoils him...
If you'd like to learn more about EPI, its symptoms, and how to treat it, there is a non profit group, EPI4Dogs Foundation with the answers. Originally it was thought that only German Shepherds were susceptible, but it started showing up in more and more breeds, even cats!
Lena Lu
Meet Lena, a not so recent addition to our family. To be more accurate, she was a recent addition to Nick's pack. Part German Shepherd, part Malamute, part Grey Wolf, part Husky. She's more than a few years old now. Our dog sitter found her walking along the road, abandoned, and took her in. It was an infuriating situation trying to return her, to say the least, when the previous owner said to just keep her, then offered to pay for the privledge!
The sitter asked if Nick was interested in fostering Luna until she could find her a new home. That was her name, Luna, but that's her past and we don't know what to think about that. She doesn't answer to her name, so we drew the conclusion she probably didn't get much attention, if any. The matted hair behind her ears and elsewhere was a good indication of her situation. After her many trips to the groomer, she's now a pampered pup!
In case it isn't obvious by now, Nick's already adopted her. Where Klaus and Rocket missed, Klaus and Lena hit it off right from the start! And she certainly gives him a run for the money! She won't leave Klaus alone, chewing on his hocks, pestering him to play. There's nowhere for him to hide from her, and that's not a bad thing. And talk about the zoomies!
Nick renamed her Lena. We tacked on the Lu, not as a reminder of her past, but what better to go with Klausie Boo than Lena Lu? She's gentle, loving, and extraordinarily intelligent. She just soaks up the affection and gives it right back. It's a shame she wasn't wanted before, but she's home now, and we're happy she's here!
Grandma and Grandpa had the watch when Nick had to head in to the office for the day. The concern was whether "potty training" would be an issue since she's been an outside dog. We didn't know what to expect at first. Would she chew things up? Would she have an "accident" if we didn't take her outside all the time? But the worries were unfounded. She's definitely an explorer, but all the toys that could be chewed up have been picked up and put away.
Her behavior is exemplary, and we thoroughly enjoy spending time with her, watching her and Klaus play. She caught on to playing ball instantly. I use the ChuckIt to throw the ball for Klaus. He brings it back to me, but not quite all the way back. Lena didn't know what to think at first, just watching the ball roll past her, but something told her to chase it and bring it back. Well, bring it almost all the way back. Must be a German Shepherd thing...
They take turns now, Lena and Klaus alternating back and forth. She's still working on the catching part though. The only other difference between them is she likes to get a drink more often than Klaus. And if Grandpa's not there to throw the ball, they entertain themselves, playing together and chasing each other around the yard. It's a heartwarming adventure to watch and enjoy.
John
I am your host, your webmaster. I'm not a locomotive engineer, but I play one on the Barkyard Railroad. I'm actually an electrical engineer, and have been since 1985, when I earned my bachelor's degree. Personal computers had just arrived on the scene and were all the rage back then. I used my Dad's Commodore 64 to do my college homework.
Personal computers have come a LONG way since then, and I've watched their capabilities multiply exponentially. Today's PCs run thousands of times faster than that Commodore 64 did, and pack significantly more cores than its single 6510. What does all that mean? Compare today's 64 bit video games with the 8 bit Atari 2600 system I played games on when it first came out. We've come a long way from blowing on the cartridge connector when the game wouldn't start!
Even further back than that, when I was still in grade school, I was building transistor throttles for my HO scale trains. I was at the mercy of whatever "cookbook" circuit I could find, not able to design my own at the time. I could experiment with different components and cobble things together, but if it didn't work, I couldn't tell you why.
The reason I pursued a degree in electrical engineering was so that I could design my own circuits. And design them I did. Once we were settled enough that I was able to revive my HO layout, I looked at reviving those transistor throttles, with an eye to the old CTC-16 remote control system. Well, by the time I got back into model railroading, the state of the art had passed me by. Digital Command Control (DCC) was the latest technology.
Fast forward to today. What would have taken months to design and build, using dozens of discrete ICs and other components, is now available off the shelf for $5 in the form of an Arduino! For $50 you can get a Raspberry PI, a fairly capable ARM based micro computer that runs its own operating system, a Linux variant called Raspian. I use a PI 4 to control the 3D printer, connected via WiFi to the home network, so it can be controlled and monitored from anywhere.
Again, what does all this mean? It means I've kept up with the times, and have put all that knowledge and experience to good use on our garden scale Barkyard Railroad! I put those Arduinos to work, remote controlling things like passenger car lighting, locomotive motors, and servo gadgets. I even have PI Zero W remote cameras for recording video from inside the cab. All of it connected by WiFi, again, so it can be controlled and monitored from anywhere.
Ann
This is my beautiful wife, Ann. She's the brains of the organization. She's the reason why there's a Barkyard Railroad. She found an ad for a used garden scale train set for $50. It was definitely used! Well used for that matter, but it got us started. She bought me a three truck Shay engine for Christmas, a lot like the one that pulled the train we rode on the Cass Scenic Railway in WV on our 30th anniversary trip. That sealed the deal. Our outdoor pike has grown ever since!
She's a medical professional, but still manages to satiate her creative desires. She entered a local short story contest, writing about our Brigel nursing Mama back to health, and won second prize! She's been instrumental in keeping our garden "fresh". In fact, we wouldn't even have a garden if it weren't for her vision of transforming our leaf covered, bare dirt back yard into the Barkyard we have now.
She found the pavers we used to create a patio next to the garage. She found the artificial turf we used to again cover the dirt when the sod failed under the constant pounding of puppy paws. She cared for the raised planters as I added them. She even found "spinny-ma-thingies" to plant around the Barkyard. My favorite is the metal sculpture of a biplane, with a ridiculously huge propeller. But when it catches the wind, it spins like crazy!
She supports my efforts to add features to make our Barkyard more of a model railroad. It's probably closer to say she tolerates my stupid ideas, but at least we can runs trains! With her help, we've made it a playground, one that's shared with the pups. She's helped reign in my desire to fill the entire yard with train track, instead leaving room for the puppies to run and play without obstacles.
She helps "fill in the blanks" when features I'm working on are left unfinished. A good example is the elevated track without a supporting scale model trestle. Rather than leave the track just "floating" in mid air, supported only by an occasional white PVC pipe, she placed some short white picket fencing beneath. Not only does it disguise those white PVC posts, it's a pleasant and acceptable view block, and it gives the track a reason to be there.
We don't always see eye to eye on things, but we keep an open mind, willing to try each other's ideas to see if they'll work out. Ann has an eye for the aesthetics, and I have the knowledge of how prototypical railroads would do things. While we have to rule out some things because of that, it does provide fuel for thought. I've done at least as much civil engineering on the Barkyard as electrical, and definitely spent more time than both on research and design!
Nick
This handsome young man is our son, Nick. He has his own place now, but helps out whenever he can. We tried to return him, but Amazon wouldn't accept the shipment!
Seriously though, he's helped us do more than we could have ever imagined. And all we have to do is ask for his help. Along the way we've passed along all that we learned from our parents and our experience. Things like plumbing, electrical, and carpentry to name a few. But he's not limited to what we've passed along and not afraid to try and do new things, like metal working, welding, and machining.
He's already far surpassed our abilities, adding his own likes and curiosity to the mix. Like us, he doesn't limit himself by saying he can't do something without trying it first. And like us, he's never stopped learning. But he's not "mini-me". He's his own man, with his own hobbies and interests. Sometimes our paths cross. Other times, we need to rely on him for his knowledge and skills, knowledge and skills that we do not possess.
To put this all in perspective, he helped me tear down and yank the engine out of our '98 Jeep Wrangler. We had the engine rebuilt and he pretty much put that Jeep back together by himself, while still in high school. When he was in grade school, he would bring home computers people had put out the curb... And FIX them! Ann finally had to tell him to stop bringing them home we had so many.
He's since earned his own bachelor's degree. It wasn't long after we moved out here to Mount Dora that he bought a place of his own and moved out. We call his place Nick's Mustang Ranch. Why? Well, shortly after he got that Wrangler back together, some idiot turning left jumped in front of us and the Jeep was totalled! Nick was heartbroken...
Until we bought his '67 Mustang with the insurance settlement. Wherever he's worked on it became the Mustang Ranch. He has two garages, one attached to his house, and one detached. The attached garage is his machine shop. He installed a hydraulic lift in the detached garage to work on all his vehicles, including his beloved Mustang.