Deer in the garden

When we left the house this morning, we spotted a bunny in the garden. Then we noticed that the sunflower next to the bunny had no leaves on it. Could the bunnies really have eaten a 2 foot tall sunflower?
I thought it would take a deer to eat the tops off those flowers... Sure enough, there were deer tracks in our garden. Right in town! We had deer tracks once this winter in the snow, but assumed that the bitter cold led the deer to seek easy food like birdseed. Today's deer tracks were more of a surprise.
Little Tori is very sad to have lost her big sunflowers. Yup - all we have left are several 5 - 8 inch stumps with no leaves. Tori left a doll in the window tonight to warn us if the deer return.
I wonder if the deer will return and eat anything else. I have pretty low expectations for this garden. We only water and weed periodically, and when we do go out and work in it, our 'helpers' are pretty hazardous to plants. But it is fun and gets them out in the dirt.

It has been pretty cold around here lately. Highs in the 60s. Pretty strange for July. Also, there has been a lot of lake itch at the beach. We have hardly gone swimming at all.