I posted our first site nearly thirty years ago. It's slowly evolved over the years into what you see today. What started as a simple family site to chronicle vacations and other events was abandoned and Stew's Place created, a place to capture all our projects, renovations, motorcycles, rebuilds, etc.
Stew's Place was written from the viewpoint of "Manic Mechanic Wekiva". We rebuilt a number of classic motorcycles from the '80s, a '98 Jeep Wrangler, even a '67 Mustang. I say we, we being my son, Nicholas, and myself. He was instrumental in our kitchen renovation, helping the contractor we hired to do the work. That was our old house of 20 years in Wekiva Springs, FL.
A change in fortune forced our hand when when a pipe burst and we had to move much sooner than expected to our new home in Mount Dora, FL. If you do the math, that means we've been here the last ten years. Trying to "shoe horn" all the new adventures in Mount Dora into the old Stew's Place just wasn't working. Enter the latest encarnation, the BarkyardRR, RR as in Rail Road. And barkyard as in the backyard full of "barkers".
We love our pups. And they love us. We have slowly transformed our Barkyard into a playground for them as well as ourselves. It started with replacing the worn out fence. We added a paver patio along the garage. We laid sod. We added raised bed planters. Not all at once, and not without problems, but always a work in progress.
And we love our trains. One of the reasons we moved to Mount Dora was the train. The train station is downtown and within walking distance. The Orange Blossom Cannonball ran between here and our sister cities, Tavares and Eustis. We could walk down to the station and ride the train to our favorite pub to enjoy lunch.
Soon after we moved the train ran here no more. Sad. But nothing lasts forever. There's really no way to fit 30 years into a few paragraphs, so join us read more about it. Who knows? Maybe that motorcyle manual you've been looking for is just waiting to find you. Not your style? How about salvaging all the plaster and lath when renovating every room in our 100 year old home?