KatysBlog

There are still many projects to finish the restoration of WP668, our
backyard caboose, but it is beginning to be usable. Once the new floor surface
goes in, it will look much better. Our daughter Jessica
gets credit for holding the first party in the caboose, on New Year’s Eve
2007. She invited a hoard of teenagers over for a dance. They didn’t care
that it was cold, the bay window wasn’t in, the floor was covered in plywood
sheets, and there was no paint! All that mattered was that they
could play their music loud and hang out with each other.

Our second party was last Sunday, when John and I invited our Agape dinner
group over. St. Andrew’s
Episcopal Church has a program for parishioners to get to know each
other better by meeting for dinner once a month at each other’s homes.
It was our turn to host last Sunday. We moved in the old iron stove and some
train lanterns for atmosphere, plus the three area rugs we bought for the caboose
at Fabindia while we were working
in India a year ago. We had wine, crackers, and cheese in WP668 and then
moved back into the house for dinner. It went very well.

John and I are moving up to hosting the Caboose Brunch next month and
then a Caboose warming party this summer. Here are some photos:

New Year’s 2007

New Year’s 2007

New Year’s 2007

Almost Ready to Party

Iron stove, lanterns

Ready for Guests

Images Copyright 2007-2008 by Katy Dickinson

We just received the current issue of The Western Pacific Headlight
(Issue 35, Spring 2008). This is the official publication of the Feather
River Rail Society (FRRS) and the Western Pacific Railroad Historical
Society (WPRRHS), based in Portola, California. The back pages 22-23 of this
issue show six black and white photos of “WP Wooden Caboose Photos” taken in 1973-1975
by Peter Arnold. Our own WP668 is one of them. This is the same WP668
14 September 1974 photo also published on p. 122: Western Pacific Color Guide
to Freight and Passenger Equipment by Jim Eager, 2001
(Publisher: Morning Sun Books; ISBN-10: 158248063X, ISBN-13: 978-1582480633)

Here it is in color (published with permission of Morning Sun Books):

All six photos in the current Western Pacific Headlight issue
are of steel strapped wooden bay window WP cabooses. This group was originally built
as boxcars around 1916 and converted to caboose service around 1943 (for World War II).
They are numbers 643, 645, 668, 679, 680, and 683. Looking at the

Central California Rails Caboose Index W, at least three cabooses pictured
(645, 668, and 679) still exist. WP645 and WP679 are in Portola and, of course,
WP668 is in our San Jose backyard.

I have been interviewing rocks. That is to say, I have hundreds
of garden rocks of sizes from the diameter of my fist to twice the size of my
head, plus many smaller and a few boulders even larger. Most of these are in
use but all are being considered for relocation to my new cactus garden.
The size, color, and texture patterns of each rock determine whether it gets
relocated. Also, if it is still needed where I had it originally. For example,
the rosemary border between the house and driveway has overgrown its
rock edging so all of those are being wiggled out and moved either to
the cactus garden or to replace rocks now in the cactus garden. My son Paul
helped me move 40 rocks on Saturday. He said he would rather lift weights.

Some of the rocks came with our Willow Glen house and I moved others from our old
house. Still more were collected in our driving trips around California
and Nevada each summer. The yellow quartz stone below came from Jake’s Creek
behind my Great-Grandparents’ Elkmont cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains
in Tennessee. Below are photos of some of my favorite rocks,
plus work-in-progress images of the cactus garden.

My neighbor came by to see what was happening. She said that the
caboose in the cactus garden looked like Disneyland. I hadn’t been thinking
of Disneyland as a source of garden design inspiration but I include
two photos from Splash Mountain’s small cactus garden below for comparison.
As you can
read in my blog, my daughter Jessica and visited

Disney World – Magic Kingdom after participating in the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in October 2007.

Buying more gravel

Dark gravel in arroyito

Starting to place stones

Moving stones

Silver Torch blooms

Trichocereus Carmarguensis Crest

Cactus without nametag

Last barrel cactus

Top gravel placed

Making progress…

Splash Mountain garden 1

Splash Mountain garden 2

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson