These are the "new" steps, part of a project which Father eventually extended all the way up the hill to the garage. Several years later, he built a deck over the old concrete patio, and I rather missed all its characterful cracks, patches and mossy spots.

The hillside above the lawn hasn't yet had its spring weeding, but already you can see some of the iris that filled it. The little path leading off from the top of the steps is "The Cowboy Trail" that wound all around the slope, ending at the the stairs running up from the far side of the lawn past the citrus and walnut trees. The little apple tree hasn't begun to leaf yet, but the loquat in the upper right was green year-round. We had three of them; the fruit, with its gigantic, slick-skinned pits, was sweet and exotically flavorful, but we never did anything with it except pull it off the trees and devour it on the spot.