Yes, Deer

We were very puzzled when our two small citrus trees out behind the fence were radically "pruned" early last year.  The cuts on the stems were very sharp, not shredded or chewed.  We speculated that it might be the usual suspects, AKA the California Ground Squirrels or a giant rabbit, or even a neighbor trying out new pruning shears.   (See New Garden Mystery, January 2012)).

But everybody else said some variation of "it's a deer."  We initially had trouble accepting that explanation; we live in the middle of a city of 1.3 million people, after all.  Our neighborhood is surrounded by freeways and we had never seen any evidence of deer in the area.

Then, on Labor Day morning, a (you guessed it) DEER crashed through the plate glass window of the International House of Pancakes in Mission Valley, about four miles down the valley from us.  The IHOP manager finally opened the emergency exit and the deer bolted off into the blue.  They speculated that the deer had come down the nearby San Diego River bed and across the parking lot to crash into the restaurant. Check out the video at: http://www.10news.com/news/video-shows-deer-running-through-mission-valley-ihop-2 .

So we finally had to accept the idea that it really was a deer that had followed the river down and chomped our trees on his way to the restaurant.

Probably looking for a little citrus to go with his pancakes, I guess.