Mid-week odds & ends

Rose, Pete - Always liked the guy as a scrappy player for the Reds. Hard to believe he'd throw a game just to make a few bucks betting, but when you break the rules and then lie about it, you've given them enough rope to really hang you. 
June rain - TPP has recorded 7.25 inches of rain this month when the area usually averages around 4.25 inches for the whole month. It's raining now and heavy rains are predicted over night. Never seen the soil so wet for so long in the summer. Weeds pull pretty easy, but all this rain makes them grow like crazy and totally weeded beds now need weeding again.
Lilies - June is lily month in our gardens. Mrs. Phactor likes her lilies, daylilies, oriental lilies, tiger lilies, all types. So some colorful masses of color are gracing the gardens, now if life just allowed us to sit on the patio a bit more and enjoy the show.
Sarah Palin - You know your irrelevance factor is climbing fast because our country's favorite incoherent commentator did not have her Phlox News contract renewed. Now she's really yesterday's news. Makes her quest for cash a lot tougher.
Confederate flag - TPP's Mother was a southerner from Mississippi. But she had the poor white perspective on race where you both lived the same way, sometimes right across the dirt road from each other, so played with their kids, and you understood that the differences were those of opportunity and money. And she got out via marriage. She'd cheer for the Arkansas Razorbacks or Mississippi women in beauty contests, but that was as much support for the "south" as she had. She did love gardenias.
Father's Day - The F1 remembered her Dad and brought many little gifts: rambutan, papaya, pepino, a blue cheese, a raclette cheese, some fancy coffee, a tamarind concentrate, and sour patch kid candies. How thoughtful! Rambutan in USA markets is fairly new, but tropical fruit that has to travel a long way is often not tip top produce. The leathery rind of rambutans and lychees should be red and pliable. Because they are often picked too green they may not have the best flavor. Some of these were pretty good, about 5.5 on the 10 point fresh tropical scale; they others were past ediblity. Made a great papaya salad with coconut, lime juice, cilantro, and hot sauce. Some of these orange-fleshed papayas are surprisingly good, maybe reaching an 7.5 to 8 flavor-wise, if you know how to pick them.
Currants - Picked several quarts of red currants from our 3 young bushes. This is enough for a year's supply of currant jelly. But today the aging back is complaining about work this low.
Japanese beetles - They have hatched, but no telling how big the population will be. Hoped the wet weather in combination with milky spore fungus would keep them in check. But bought some more netting from favorite fabric shop to cover new apple trees anyways.