As I continue to recover from surgery for my enlarge prostate a couple of days before Thanksgiving, my doctor firmly says to stay off the trails. With the sub-zero weather and snow that we have been experiencing in Boulder I wouldn’t have gone hiking in the mountains anyway. And besides, it’s too early to bring out my snowshoes.

But at least I can review my photographs and start to share some of those that I took in Africa years ago. When I returned to the States in 1969 after living there for four years, I brought back more than 10,000 35mm slides that I had taken with my single-lens reflex camera. Pictures in those days were, of course, all analog. But recently I selected a couple of hundred of my favorite shots for a local camera store to scan in as TIFFs.

Once I got to Africa I didn’t have to go far to capture most of these images. Many flowers grew on the acre of land around my home in Nairobi, Kenya, where I lived for three years.

My First Home in Africa

We lived right next door to a coffee plantation. Kenya, of course, grows some of the best coffee in the world. Here’s what it looks like on the coffee bush.

Ripe and Unripe Coffee Beans

I love the beauty of butterflies and found them even in Africa. I well remember taking this picture 40 years ago in the rock garden in back of our kitchen.

Butterfly and Flower in Rock Garden

I wish that I were a botanist and could name the flowers below. All that I know about them is that most, if now all, grew in my garden and that their sublime beauty brightened my days in Nairobi.

Flower 1

Flower 2

Flower 3

Flower 4

Flower 5

Flower 6