Peach Pitt’s dreams of “fashion fame and fortune” under the imprimatur of online influencer Holly Folly were resolved this week; just not in the way Peach originally hoped.

Arguments and denials were the focus of the first half of the week, as Peach rejected the authenticity of photographic evidence Olive and Cherry gathered from the local dump. Of course, this drama could have been avoided had Olive brought Peach to the dump, but stories need drama, right?

Then Rusty showed up at the cabin with a video postcard from Mark. Somehow, his pre-recorded message calmed everybody down. Peach finally agreed to read Holly’s business contract and prepare to negotiate some of the clauses. The expected phone call from Holly finally arrived.

Holly blew up when Peach admitted that not only had she not signed the contract, but she had questions. Holly’s temper tantrum resulted in Peach telling Holly where to stuff her contract. Peach hung up, effectively killing the deal and hopefully ending this story.

From an environmental standpoint this story did at least introduce readers to real-world issues related to “Fast Fashion” clothing and provided a simple way to combat it: Don’t buy it. I’ve cut way back!

The title panel has a good layout, though the imaging of the title is a bit flat. It’s just my outstanding opinion, of course, but I think it would have been punchier if it was slanted to the upper right.

This is a good topic, and timely for those of us who live in places that get snow. What is interesting is that, in spite of the fact that they two birds are not related, they have superficial similarities, what biologists call convergent evolution (of similar features across different lineages), possibly due to similar behaviors and environments. Otherwise, today’s nature strip looks like an elaborate setup to get Mark into a tux for his New Year greeting!