Really?  Unless the approach to Lost Forest is on the other side of the house, it’s just a tad ridiculous that the Tiger, the size of a car, noshing on a hambone, went unnoticed…

Cherry? YOU were about to call the Sheriff?  Pretty sure that Mark was the one who was going to do that…  Well, let’s hope we don’t have to endure weeks of bad jokes like we did at the hand of Sheriff Stober in the Black-footed Ferret caper…

Oh good!  Local Law Enforcement!  It’s about time you got here…

Mark, does it not occur to you that people can communicate without you in the middle facilitating?  I mean, what do you think these people do when you are off on one of your capers?  Just sit around waiting for you to return??

Not to mention the fact that you really don’t have any idea how many or what type of animals you are dealing with- so far you have a pair of Giraffe, an Ostrich riding Monkey and a Bengal tiger…  who knows what else might be out there…

Never mind the fact that Cherry was fixin’ to put some hot-cakes on the table!  Whatever happened to that?!

Well, which is it, Mark?  First you bark at Dusty to bring the drugs and now you are offering up Doc’s stash!!

Still not an ounce of contrition offered up to Rusty or Doc…  Amazing, too, how Mark manages to talk without opening his mouth!!  Ah, the magic of clip-art!

We still don’t know what “theory” Mark was testing, and now we sure don’t know what the Trails will be having for dinner tonight!  Cherry will have to run the gauntlet past the tiger and other exotica on her way to the Piggly Wiggly or The Food Lion to get something else to put on the table!

But meanwhile, Doc is feeling exonerated and is ready to go back in!  And Mark, ever to be the one to take charge is doing just that!  Issuing orders like he’s the Chief of Fish and Wildlife!  Guys with Dart Guns!  Trucks!! CAGES!!!  Bring them all!  Oh, you say there were budget cuts?  Well too bad, Dusty, did I make it clear that your job is at stake??

Mark, you are one crazy hombre.  And not in a good way.

For the life of me, I am not following this… And now that the Tiger has been fed, you’ll never get rid of it…

Not to mention the scale of the Ham compared to the Tiger… the Tiger makes it look like a turkey leg.  Yikes.

The Stainless Steel one that is completely out of character for the Lost Forest kitchen??

Why do they have to be quiet?  They are inside!  And what is this “theory” that Mark is trying to “test?”  That Large Carnivorous Mammals eat the muscles of other mammals??

And I am not sure I have ever seen a ham with the Femur extending quite like that, but who knows how they butcher meat in northern Georgia?  Probably lovingly cured in their own smokehouse after slaughtering a hog from a local farmer…  We never get to see how the food actually gets onto the Lost Forest table… this is as close as we have ever come to that!

Well, almost…

Cool as a cucumber, (at least not one out in the garden on a hot summer day…) Mark gets all scienc-ey and “tests a theory” that if you don’t threaten a tiger, it won’t charge you…  Apparently this worked, at least as far as him turning around on the porch and getting back through the front door…  Is this the return of Richard Parker from Life of Pi fame??  It was a book, too… which I recommend over the movie…  But no doubt this is a remnant from the circus train… the only problem being that if this is a circus of any renown, this isn’t the only large cat roaming the Preserve…

And what will Mark have Cherry-Honey do?  She’s got a “bad feeling” that something isn’t quite right, judging by the look on her face…

What does Mark see that has him gobsmacked in the last panel?

It couldn’t simply be an exotic animal… it has to be the vision of someone who has risen from the dead!!  Recall that Dirty “Didn’t make it” after getting his burnt-up ass hauled to the hospital in the Rhino-horn caper…

But maybe it is just the black bear in a tutu…  But is that sight giving Mark a PTSD moment from the time that a Black Bear with an illegal-trap-injured paw had him treed and worse?

Whatever it is, we can all hopefully be thankful that this little “episode” can move on to the next chapter in which “Mark Realizes he’s been wrong all the time, but can’t bring himself to apologize to anyone…” Stay tuned!!

…if I were the bear in the first panel…  I mean, what the %$#^&?!

It appears that Dusty is as humorless and devoid of imagination and possibilities as Mark and Cherry are… Boy won’t he be surprised when it turns out that the woods are chock-full of surprises!!

I think by now we can assume that it IS the exodus from the Tingling Brothers circus train we are witnessing.  Funny thing, we have some history right in our own backyard- That is if you live in Wisconsin or Minnesota- the Circus World Museum is in Baraboo, WI, just west of Madison.

From the wiki:

Circus World Museum is located in Baraboo, Wisconsin, because Baraboo was home to the Ringling Brothers. It was from Baraboo in 1884 that the Ringling Brothers Circus began their first tour as a circus. Over six seasons, the circus expanded from a wagon show to a railroad show with 225 employees, touring cities across the United States each summer. Baraboo remained the circus’s headquarters and wintering grounds until 1918, when the Ringling Brothers Circus combined with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, which the Ringling Brothers had bought out in 1908. The combined entity, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, was successful until 2017 when it took its final bow on Sunday May 21, 2017, at Long Island City in New York state.

I get that everything has its run… and apparently there is no room for the Circus in today’s world.  Except perhaps in books:  Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants and John Irving’s A Son of the Circus immediately came to mind.

OK, the world is certainly going to stop spinning now…  Human sacrifice!  Dogs and cats living together!  Mass hysteria!!

And in panel 3, it looks like Cherry has aged significantly!!  Her picture in the attic, collecting wrinkles over the years, is no match for this rift, this falling out between Doc Davis and his coffee!!  Cheer up Doc!  Mark “The Decider” will no doubt return with a verdict in your favor, and you can go back to getting hopped up on caffeine!

How long have we been going on about the existence of exotic, if not invasive, species on the grounds of Lost Forest?  Oh, I know… exactly a month…  Human-time 30 days equivalent to 10 minutes Trail-time…

In that time, Rusty has been browbeaten, Doc has been accused of imbibing and insanity, Shannon and Kathy have been terrorized, and Frank gave of his dreams of catching the big one whilst collecting sick-pay…  And all Mark can say is “I’ll go outside and take a look around?”  With a look on his face that reflects something between resignation and ennui, and Cherry ready to refill the coffee cups…  Doc needs to remind his daughter and freeloading son-in-law that he’s the one providing the roof over everyone’s head and he needs to be shown a little more respect!!

Remember Ranger Dusty?  Cherry’s call for help when Mark didn’t come home that night??

Apparently, Dusty is no friend of Doc’s anymore!  Not after being accused of insanity or other improprieties…

That’s right!! Doc is a Tee-damn-totaler!  Coffee, black is the strongest thing he ever puts past his gums!!  And as Rusty (rhymes with Dusty) has been lurking just off (below?) camera, he sees his opportunity to pop his head up out of his hole and offer up his giraffe story again…  What?  Is Mark going to have to get out his switch and beat some sense into these people??

Speaking of switches, I noticed that former Viking running back and face-of-the-franchise Adrian Peterson is in a bunch of Financial hot water!  Regular readers know that I am not a fan of this team, and this guy, in particular, has always galled me.  And I predict that he will soon be on the rubbish heap of athletes who have earned 10’s if not 100’s of millions of dollars through playing and endorsements only to find their way to the bankruptcy court…  Why a bank would make a high six-figure loan to a guy using his contract (with no guarantees) as security is beyond me!  And the fact the Peterson’s Eden Prairie, MN home (one of 5 or six he “owns”) already has two mortgages on it comes as no surprise whatsoever… Just like the people featured “My 600 lb Life,” someone has to be abetting this behavior- someone has to be bringing the food into the house!!