There are things you just love about home, things that maybe nobody else in the world would appreciate. Driving through Wyoming this past week, I really had to wonder why anybody would choose to live there. And in fact, few people do. The population of the entire state is less than 600,000, but I bet that a large number of them if not the vast majority love their state and would never consider living anywhere else.

I happen to love California, or at least that tiny part of it that I call home. I've got pomegranates here, my very own bush  of them. Dad introduced them to me when I was a kid. He called them "Indian apples," which apparently nobody else does. I loved them, and they were so terribly exotic that I thought perhaps they were the basis of wealth for some mysterious, turbaned desert lord, and that they were used to redden the lips of the beautiful (and scantily clad) slave girls who broke them open and served them to their benevolent master. Now I have my very source of pomegranates, and the bush is loaded with these beauties, and they will be ready in the next couple of weeks. I guess I need to begin interviewing slave girls.

This is also a great place for outdoor
ponds. Our pond won't freeze here. It is possble that a thin layer of ice could form on the surface on some unusually cold January morning, but that would be rare and a cause of great fascination. Our pond has had a resident goldfish population for four years, and now it has a new dweller -- a six inch red eared slider inherited from the neighbor boys who last month brought us a frog. I watched today as the turtle clambered out of the water to sun itself on the rocks in the 100 degree heat. He will be a "wild" turtle, or perhaps I should say a "free range" turtle, so we'll see if he sticks around. Some do, some don't from what I read.

 Speaking of 100 degree heat, I also love being in a place where it is not all that unusual to be swimming at the end of September and even in to October.
I had noticed when we were in Pennsylvania that all the pools had already been covered up for the winter. Of course the public pools close for the season on Labor Day, but all the back yard pools I saw were also shuttered. We're still open for business here, and the pool felt just incredibly refreshing today. I'm boasting here, I know, and the reality is that without a pool heater, our season will soon be over, but I am pretty sure I'll be in the pool tomorrow. And I'm pretty sure I'll be in the pool on Friday just so I can call the family back in Pennsylvania and say sure, we swim all the way into October out here in California.

God is good, and California ain't bad.