In all likelihood, this is the work of man. Conventional wisdom tells us that deer can not put on clothing, no matter how simple the design. And yet, let me tell you about deer.

Not long ago I moved to a small town nestled in lake country. My first week here I ran into a bear as one might run into a neighbour in line at the grocery store, both of us picking up some berries from nature’s free shop. Foxes, wolves and otters are common sightings, too, but none of them so bold as the deer.

A deer can jump a six foot fence like a tissue floating on wind, so when I decided to garden, I caged the whole thing up. I look left and I look right, and then I open the wood and wire door to check on my pumpkins to an audible snort, deer just behind me, waiting to get at my peas.

A deer figured out the gate to the deck and ate all my tomatoes. I chased after one, trying to help, because it got the whole tomato cage stuck on it’s head like an avant-garde muzzle, it wore it for a week. A deer begged my friend for her wendy’s fries and ate them from her hand, we posted a picture and three people said “Oh yeah, that’s Bernie.” A deer broke my plastic garden chair by trying to sleep in it. Just today, I was scattering salt and sand over the walkway when a deer pranced over and stuck it’s whole head in the scoop/shaker thing while I still held it.

I don’t encourage the deer, I don’t feed them or start conversations, but to them we’re all one weird tribe. They bring their kids to the yard in the morning to hang out, sometimes waiting by the door for me to come outside with my coffee. Sometimes they have neon flagging tape or chicken wire stuck in their antlers, and they won’t let me take it out. Sometimes they have orphaned mits in their mouths, I don’t know where from, and they throw them at each other in a game I don’t understand.

I’m not saying a deer could put on a vest, no, but it was probably their idea.