A “Woman’s Touch” was the theme of the week when Bill Ellis made his usual phone call during Mark and Cherry’s nature walk and love affirmation session. But it turned out that he wanted Cherry’s participation instead of Mark’s. This was a highly unusual idea, using Cherry as the lead in a Bill Ellis assignment. Ellis specifically wanted a female reporter to accompany a trio of female book club members in their mission to eliminate feral hogs from people’s yards.

Somehow, Cherry got the impression that she was expected to also take part in the actual hunting instead of simply reporting on the group’s activities, and Bill Ellis did nothing to dissuade her. Maybe he did infer that. I dunno. But Cherry is no hunter and even got a bit panicky at the thought of hunting feral hogs. So she turned him down. Instead, she suggested Mark would be the person to take on the job. Seeing as how Bill was interested in a woman’s point of view, I’m not sure what Cherry was thinking at that point, but Mark was on board. However, we have yet to hear what Bill Ellis has to say on this last-minute substitution.

Thus, within one week, Jules Rivera tempted us with the novelty of Cherry going on an official assignment instead of Mark, only to pull it away by having Cherry refuse the job. It could have been nice to see Cherry operate in a situation that did not include the Sunny Soleil Society. Still, as I noted, we have not heard the last from Bill Ellis, who may reshape the job to get Cherry on board. We’ll see. But until then, let’s see what aspect of Nature Mark is expounding on today:

Well, yippee yi yo ki yay! We’re back in Texas once again and once again talking about bats. You would not be chastised for thinking that Mark might even own some property out there. Or maybe a bat sanctuary.

Too bad that Rivera didn’t have to mention a particularly popular event down in Austin:
“Texas is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world, consisting of [up to] 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas.”

Apparently, these bats collectively leave the dark underside of the bridge every evening from around mid-March to early November and create a spectacular cloud of flying mammals looking for their evening meal. It’s quite the attraction, online sources say.