Today’s strip reveals much…  Rusty returns from his apple picking to innocently request that his adoptive parents come check out the wonder he has seen…

But look at the scowl on Mark’s face in panel one!  Cherry’s pursed lips!  It’s like the mere presence of this lad puts them immediately off their feed!  The center panel confirms this and reveals a stern and crabby response from Cherry… What is it NOW??? Huh??  The beleaguered Rusty, apparently used to this, simply lowers his visage and beseaches his keepers to stay with him…

Sorry, but for all the ribbing we give him, it appears that Rusty truly does live in a cage, literal or metaphorical…

Remember when Rusty went “fishing” and had vivid dreams about Dinosaurs?

I’m still not convinced that this whole “Giraffe” thing isn’t a figment of his imagination… When a child is subjected to the trauma that Rusty surely was and placed into the hands of indifferent caregivers, it’s not surprising that he creates his own realities!

“Mark, Cherry!…  I mean, Mom, Dad!  There’s Giraffes in the apple orchard!!”  This ought to be good!

Really?

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro… So sayeth Hunter S. Thompson, father of Gonzo Journalism…  Are we sure Rusty isn’t tripping here?  He is left (mostly) to his own devices these days, and there’s no telling what he’s getting into.

Could it have something to do with the Tingling Brothers Circus closing up? Maybe the Circus Train broke down somewhere in / near the Chattahoochee National Forest where this all resides… Just trying to connect some dots here, people…

As the Giraffe of unknown provenance digs into the pail of apples, we must continue to scratch our collective heads as to what is going on here…  clearly the the giraffe is an escaped animal from either a public or private menagerie…  the natural range for these animals being the savannas of Africa…

But how big is this creature? A Giraffe skull for sale (really?!) indicates that the head is about 2 feet long, about 6 hands worth… but you could fit easily twice as many Rusty-hands along the length of the giraffe head in panel 2…

And how can the Trails go to Mexico with a Giraffe running loose on the preserve?  This demands answers!!

OK, in my haste last night I missed the outline of two slender fore-legs of some creature…

How silly of me!

And it looks like George Atkins nailed that one…  A giraffe indeed!  By now rusty must be wondering if he ate a magic mushroom or something!

No comment on Rusty… poor lad…

But back to the word species… Is it spee-sees, Or  spe-shees?  Gro-sher or gro-ser? I am going to the gro-sher-ee store to speak to the Gro-ser about carrying a better brand of coffee…  seems no one makes the call here…  I prefer to avoid the ‘sh’ sound, but then I tend to notice and worry about things that don’t really matter…

…but when I do, I prefer the ones that are already rotting on the ground…

Rusty, Rusty, Rusty… Where have you been?  Where did you get that new… um… look?  You are the only person I know who sits on the ground in order to pick apples…  and has managed to gain the ripe old age of what?  10?  And not understand that the world is governed, really, by one thing- GRAVITY!  But we know that you have spent too much time in the Trailverse by uttering the time-honored, “Hungh!?”

I think James Allen dislikes drawing Rusty as much as most of us dislike seeking hi ever-morphing features!  Other that the always-slow-roll of the unfolding story line, what else would explain the fact that we hardly ever see him??

Ol’ Doc Davis has a crush on the local School Marm?  That’s creepy!  Depending on her age, I suppose… Are school teachers in the Lost Forest School District allowed to date??  Have adult relationships??  Until the second Word War, Teachers generally weren’t allowed to Marry, if they did they had to forfeit their job…  Assuming that Mark uses a cell phone now, let’s hope that the cultural norms in Northern Georgia have evolved to include Teachers marrying!

Apples on Pancakes?  Yum?  Maybe the kind that are baked and meant for pie?

Cherry is busy offering up her father in exchange for favorable treatment down at the Schoolhouse?  This disturbing on many, many levels!

And what’s with the disembodied laugh accompanying Mark in the enter panel?  The laughing certainly doesn’t match the look of shock and dismay on his face!!  But again, more new expressions to try out!  I hope he doesn’t hurt himself!!

No more Stonewall Mark it would seem.

While the head shot of Cherry is right out of clip-art central, the two shots of Mark have his face all screwed up and contorted…  expressing emotion, irony, intrigue.  How odd.

Pacing, as we see, is slow here… we’ll know what the Trails are up to in the next week or two, but certainly no sooner!

You’ll convince yourselves eventually.  Not that you have shown an ounce of concern over Rusty’s welfare, other than rescuing him from his abusive/ alcoholic father… from what we can tell, he’s kept locked in his room until it’s time for his appearances…

F

But anyway, off they go to Meh-Hee-Cho!  Let’s see what kind of trouble they can get into!!

Or vice versa…

Edumacational trip, huh?  That’s almost as good as saying you are going on a Cruise, or Disney World for that matter…

But I am having trouble remembering whether Mark made a promise… I think he did…  Yup!  Man of his word!!

Off to Mexico we go!  Won’t Dirty be disappointed when he arrives at Lost Forest only to see them gone!

Nurse Bambi?

Nope.

Read the damn paper and see the h*ll is going on this world…

I am surprised that a physical Newspaper can make its way to the stoop of Lost Forest.  Heck, Ol’ Doc might have to drive into town, or at least to the end of the long driveway…

Seriously.  I was afraid I’d have to go back to yesterday’s installment and make an update… Since I had glossed over the obvious cinematic reference…

What is that you wonder?  Well certainly that has to be “Rocket Raccoon” from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise…  the brash yet vulnerable “product of genetic engineering on lower life forms” producing a brilliant character that adds quite a bit to the story lines!  Just watched the sequel last night… Very entertaining!

But yes, this is all filler… let’s get to the next story, please!!  I won’t know what to do with the next 6 months of my life otherwise!!

A piece of Bark??  Yummy!

But what do we know about Racoons?  Or Raccoons?  For one, we can spell it either way…  Also, according to fun facts, there has only been one recorded incident of a Raccoon passing on Rabies to a human…  It’s also well established that Raccoons are the “clever ones” in the animal kingdom, as evidenced by their dexterous forpaws, an repeated depictions of getting the best of humans and other animals…  Like this scene and this  scene from the John Candy Classic, “The Great Outdoors.”

Whether it’s Andy racing around with a blood-red tongue…

…or Mark (apparently) providing the voice over…

The plot instantly thickens- at least now we know where the (presumably now deceased) King Tut got the inspiration for his chin ornament… Not the Ring-tail Lemur, but rather the Racoon!  Spitting image!!

But seriously, Lost Forest Denizens, haven’t you gotten the memo about composting food scraps?  If you do that, then there’s nothing left for the Racoons to pick over…

Big, smelly dog, faithful and constant companion to Mark and Cherry?

Restless, huh?  But, Mark, you’ve only been gone a couple of days!  In  fact, you re home early!!  Never mind that the Black footed ferret story played out for MONTHS… the elapsed time was only days!  What else might you have missed out on?  Maybe Rusty needs to be taught how to shave?  Naa… he’ll be 8 years old forever, just like Andy!

But who is doing the talking?  Some disembodied voice-over?  Clever and Alert?  With big question marks floating around his his head??