A phone call between Cherry and Rusty served as the transition back to Lost Forest where we found Cherry in a brainstorming session at Squirrelly Sally’s bakery shop, along with Doc Davis, Violet, and Sally, with her omnipresent squirrels. For a community-centered approach to solving the homeless kittens problem, there weren’t many locals.  

The group only just started when the bakery door slammed open to reveal Honest Ernest, who stammered to Violet that he would be happy to “rescue her, er, rescue the kittens” and build a cat shelter. Cherry’s own reaction was curt and tinged with cynicism. Hardly a surprise, there. Meanwhile, Doc Davis gave Ernest a welcome pat on the back and encouragement for his volunteering.  

Frankly, even if Ernest builds the kitten coop, they have to be fed and care for. We’ll have to wait to find out the details. But there’s no waiting for the Sunday Nature Chat! 

As usual, Rivera provides an interestingly customized title panel. Today’s info may or may not be new to you, but credit Rivera for focusing on just one feature; or maybe two. I did some more reading:  The “blueness” comes from scattered light due to the internal structure of the feathers. This feature was first analyzed by Robert Hooke in 1665 and later explained by Isaac Newton. Crushing a feather destroys that structure and the blue disappears, leaving behind the natural pigment. That will be a fun experiment to try (with the feather off of the bird, of course).  But I do wish Rivera would reduce Mark’s appearances to just the first and last panels. Then there would be more room for the subject matter.