19th June should have been a celebration of our 55th wedding anniversary, but instead I collapsed with nasty bacterial infections in my urinary tract and ended up spending nine days at Mercy Hospital. I then spent another nine days at the skilled nursing unit at Brookdale Riverwalk.  Finally, on 9th July I was allowed to return home.  I have lost a lot of weight and am still weak, but I will recover.  I am grateful for all the visitors at both facilities.

Fortunately the Fresno CSS meeting was cancelled as it would have been on 4th July! Instead I am including some cute Lithops “feet” from the June Fresno brag table.  It was brought by Bill Gale.

I was excited by the cover story in the recent issue of Natural History, the publication of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  It shows the moon as seen during the first visit from Earth,  I took a similar picture from Bakersfield at the same time!  We had returned from Botswana in time for the birth of our first son, John and were thus here for the historic moon visit.

I am sorry for my absence at the July meeting.  Others have agreed to cover pictures and the brag table, so the newsletter should still be complete.

On the 19th of July I was well enough to pose with Polly for a wedding anniversary picture – only a month late.