This is the week that was…wet. As in water parks. As in what looks like a second week with Cherry. On its own, it’s a bit unusual. But this week is not on her dime, is it? Or maybe it is. I mean, this is supposedly the story of Mark’s informal investigation of water pollution in a local swimming lake. Yet, we have had two weeks of Cherry and Rusty at the water park! (Oh, the trivia I get into. Do I even have a life?)
I think what we have is Jules Rivera “shaking up” her usual time allotments (2+ wks for Mark versus 1 wk for Cherry). So this week was really Cherry’s story slip-sliding into Mark’s. For those who came in late: The prize peacock belonging to Violet Cheshire’s mother (never “mom”!) escaped from the Sunny Soleil Society, leading to Cherry and Honest Ernest having to find it in time for a big-deal summer party. While Rusty was looking for more water slides, Honest Ernest phoned Cherry for help. Cherry had the day off, but since she’s been something of a nonentity the past several weeks, she relented and agreed to help Ernest, especially as she and Rusty spotted the peacock running around the resort.
Ernest arrived at the park. As the two conversed, the peacock suddenly ambushed Ernest by jumping on his head. Ernest was so upset that the peacock was able to escape once again. Meanwhile, Rusty had returned, shivering from the cold water of his latest slide. For reasons unknown to me, Cherry was getting very flustered and phoned Mark to make sure he was okay. I reckon all of the stress—from Rusty going on dodgy slides to getting herself talked into helping Ernest on her day off—was taking its toll. So she clearly needed a steady head and support.
Yet, talking to Mark, Cherry expressed the hope that her day was going better than Marks, thus contradicting the very reason she called (as far as I could tell)! In an attempt to downplay his own developing situation, Mark casually mentioned an alligator on the course interrupting play.
Such is the summary for the week. At least there was some action!
Andy finally made an appearance, if only for a brief cameo. I reckon that the cane toad is yet another case study of good intentions gone awry. Their eggs are laid in long jellied strips, housing up to 25,000 eggs. But only about 0.5% reach adulthood. I read the cane frog’s article in Wikipedia (the source of information for all of us half-baked experts!). The science backs up Mark’s warning about what happens to dogs that lick or bite cane toads. It’s yet another reason to avoid moving to Florida.
But it isn’t just animals that can get poisoned. Some humans have died, apparently thinking they were consuming a normal toad! <Bleh!> Best read the article for the other interesting tidbits. Well, go on…hop to it!
The Daily Trail 
George, I guess I’ll weigh in again. I know I’m now Mark the Contrarian. As always, fully enjoy your comments on this excuse for Mark Trail. You know my thoughts on Jules half hearted efforts here by now. To me, unreadable. Occasionally, I think she may blossom. Then, it all descends into a hodge bodge of bizarre art work and story lines that simply makes no sense. My note is to commend you on coming up with commentary on this strip. Personally, I would be at a complete lost to comment on a daily basis on this strip. As I mentioned a month ago or so, I thought she might hit the road with lack of readers/ interest. I guess I’ll just remember the classic old strips which had wonderful artwork and story lines. It is just inconceivable that readers even look forward to reading this on a daily basis. However, keep up the good and difficult work! I check out your blog daily. Amazed that you can still come up with comments! Good Job!
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Well, Mark, I just go back to the beginning and cut-and-paste my old comments under the new strips…and nobody’s noticed! Hah!Hah!Hah! :)
Well, not really. Anyway, thanks a lot; I appreciate your support, Mark. And the other commenters, too, of course. And I appreciate your feedback. I sympathize with your frustration and share that remote hope I think you have tucked away.
I admit that it’s sometimes a struggle to not keep repeating myself, or at least, not in the same way. Frankly, I’m never sure if people are really reading all the crap I write, because I know I go off on tangents and get kind of nerdy.Fortunately, Rivera keeps coming up with bizarre stuff, so I’m going to keep doing this for a bit longer. How long? Who knows. I have a deadline coming up to pay my annual access/storage fee and domain name. I’m going to invest in another year. I have a mental bet to see who lasts longer: Rivera or me.
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It happens that my local PBS station re-ran an episode of “Human Footprint” (season 2 episode 2) that featured a segment about Australia’s cane toad problem, which is much worse than Florida’s. Same story–the toads were introduced as “natural pest control” and then went wild, decimating local species and overrunning the countryside. The Aussies do not fool around with “relocating” the toads “safely and humanely,” though–the toads that are scooped up (by the bucket-full) in periodic sweeps are permanently eliminated.
Another fun fact: the reason only 0.5 percent of toad eggs make it to adulthood is that cane toad tadpoles are cannibalistic. Which has led to a possible means of controlling them: genetically engineering cane toads that can’t transform from tadpoles into adults, meaning they devour cane toad tadpoles and never reproduce.
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Good points, Lectern! And I missed that show, so I’ll look for it. Maybe cannibalism is an underappreciated form of pest control. Scientists might want to work on that with other pests, such as ticks and mosquitos. Animals that feast on them can find other food sources.
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The show is available on PBS’s website, at least for now.
If I recall correctly, the same episode also talked about interesting things being done to control disease-carrying mosquitoes. I don’t remember the details, but it involved a bacterium that somehow keeps the skeeters from injecting their disease-laden saliva then they bite, and some creative way of getting the bacterium into the skeeters in the first place.
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Sounds like a good Sunday topic for Mark to sink his teeth into.
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