Sorry to hear of your misfortune. I have similar problems with squirrels and chipmunks uprooting seedlings and plants. I know how frustrating it can be to nurture a plant and then see it wither. I have no experience with Avocado trees, but I have seen other trees send up a new shoot from the trunk when the main trunk dies. That may be what your tree is doing. If the shoot is near the roots, you may eventually have a strong tree from it. Select one sprout and trim off all of the others. Or you may want to just start over with a new seed and use this one to experiment with bonsai. Your title brought back a memory from long ago. I once told my teacher that the dog ate my homework. The teacher didn't believe my made-up story. She must have seen the TV show that gave the idea to me. I was not destined to be a con-man.

Last year I bought a a pepper plant from a local fair. I came home, put it on the balcony, and went inside to find the bag of soil I had, so I could pot it up. When I came back, the cat had eaten every single leaf on the plant. It was probably my best producing plant last year. It threw multiple leaves at the spot each previous leaf was, and most of them became branches. It ended up very bushy. I'd guess your Jalapenos, assuming they have good roots, will be fine.

I have a story, but it isn't funny. We have a little yorkie-poo. She was less than a year old when she got sick. She had a few stomach issues and they did a poop culture (sorry!), and found some type bacteria. Treated that but within a couple of weeks, she started vomiting one evening. She had never done this and after a couple of times I called our vet. Because of her small size (she's only 9 lbs. now fully grown) they had us bring her in so she wouldn't get dehydrated. They examined her, pumped her full of fluids and suggested we watch her closely overnight. The fluids and some meds helped with the vomiting but by early morning she was vomiting again. We got up, dressed and ready to get her to the vet their opening time. They did an x-ray and showed us that something was showing in her digestive track. Something she had ingested. I remembered that she had torn one of her little toys and although I never saw any stuffing out of the toy, I knew there was stuffing and we just assumed she had eaten that. They had to do emergency exploratory surgery. I bawled my eyes out. The next day when we were allowed to *visit*, the vet showed me the PLASTIC MEAT WRAPPER that she had eaten. It was to a pretty critical point, it had started through her intestines. The vet was wonderful, even took our little baby home with her overnight to keep a close eye on her and the pup came through the surgery with flying colors. And a nice little *zipper* down her belly. Hubby and I both felt awful. We didn't know she had gotten the wrapper. We figured that she had quickly grabbed it out of the garbage (which was behind a closed door, but if she saw us put something in there she'd jump up to investigate) and gotten away with it without us seeing. The stick on label on the plastic wrapping was what we were seeing on the x-ray. Alot of tears and $$$ over a meat wrapper! She's not interested in the garbage anymore (she was just a puppy then) thankfully, but we are even more cautious when throwing something away! I never throw away a meat wrapper now without putting it in another bag and tying it up first. Our pup too watches tv. It's hilarious. There was an M&M commercial that she didn't like. Now she doesn't like the Weight Watchers commercial where they have the little orange monster (hungry). She knows by the very first sound of that commercial that it's THE ONE and immediately starts barking. She barks at most dogs she sees on tv, other than cesear. Maybe because he's little like her. tina

Earlier this week I went to the supermarket and bought all the chocolate goodies .... 3 boxes of chocolates, 5 boxes of scorched almonds, 3 bags of choc coins and one box of After Eight mints. I hid them in a big box (crockpot size) on a low shelf in the pantry ... bad move! DH came home Tues night and found gold foil from the bags of coins all over the floor! I put a heavy weight on top of the box and felt secure in the knowlegde that she couldn't possibly move the weight, lift the box lid and cause any more havoc ... wrong move! While we were at work yesterday she had herself another little party! DS got home first and text me to say there was scorched almonds, after dinner mints and a huge amount of confetti sized cardboard packaging all over the kitchen floor!!!! I don't think she's actually consumed alot of the chocolate (luckily!) but she's torn alot of the packaging - two of her favourite passtimes has always been shredding cardboard and dis-embowling soft toys! Now that box is up on the HIGHEST shelf in the pantry with what remains of the goodies! And I have to brave the supermarket again to replace what's gone .... GRRRR!