He carried in the remaining items from the van, setting them down inside the door to be sorted and taken where needed, he saw his family then Candee on the chair holding Jamie, Marie on the rug in front of the fireplace with Taffy alongside of her, he still got a catch in his throat at how lucky he was to have them, the perfect family. In the morning, Starke and Candee got up before the children woke up, they liked this time together to get a cup of coffee ready the treats for the deer, take all of it out to the porch to wait for them to appear. This way they had some quality time together and with their animal friends before tending to the children's needs, then when Marie was dressed and had her breakfast she would be allowed to feed her squirrels.
It didn't take very long for the deer to appear at the edge of the tree line, Candee said, "you know, dear, I believe they can smell our coffee, and realize that we are out here." "you could be right ,they have a keen sense of smell." she picked up her bag of carrots, and he grabbed the apples and they started walking slowly towards the deer, they walk about halfway out into the yard area, then let the big male and female come to them, the others stay at the line of trees, it's always been this way.
There had to be about thirteen of them this morning, she heard Starke say to Apples his favorite, my old boy, your family has really grown, I know some are just relatives but I know many of these young ones are your off spring.
"Apples" still took the apple pieces from his hand, and he tossed much of the contents of the large bag to the others, Candee did the same with "Caramel", the female, she seemed to like carrots best, and she allowed Candee to hug her, the two females had a very close bond. Of course he was able to pet his friend Apples, since they became acquainted quite a number of years ago, shortly after he moved into the cabin. The male deer seemed to sense his loneliness at the time.
Candee started walking back to the cabin after bidding her friend good bye, "I'm going to see to the children now, they should be waking up." "Okay, I'll be along in a minute."
After they all had had their breakfast, and Jamie was in his play yard quite content, and Marie was sitting on the steps outside feeding her squirrels, Starke and Candee decided to start a search of the cabin to try to determine if anything was missing.