When I get back from my ranch visits there are certain things I have to do here. One of them is to clean up the tree trunks in the back yard along with weeding around them and picking the fruit.

As I was breaking all the new little shoots off the tree trunks today, I couldn’t help but be pulled back into my memories of childhood. I grew up here in Southern California, mainly Orange County. When I was a little girl over 40 plus years ago, before the malls, houses, and all the other business, the area was surrounded by orange groves.

As I was snapping off each little shoot I could smell the sweet bitterness of the oranges. I remembered the smell of orange blossoms in the warm spring night air when I was growing up. I thought about when we were children and walked through the groves totally unsupervised. Miles and miles of groves.

Sweet lemons next to the oranges.

I started to feel sad about leaving the smells and beautiful things about California behind. I wont have orange trees or smell the orange blossoms in the warm heavy air any more. I wont smell the ocean air on a wet and stormy day or see the sun dancing across the waves like thousands of diamonds.

I will not miss the traffic, cars, crowds, or event those California attitudes, but I will really miss California’s sweetness of smells, warmth, and beauty.