Through Bonnie and Darlene I met Carole Balcer. 
She was in need of someone to share the rent and I was in need of a place to live. So I moved into the house she was renting in Nicholasville.
When I met her she was working with horses, cleaning houses, a waitress at De Shay's , dog sitting, house sitting and just never home the same hours I was there. 
So we would leave notes for each other to keep the household going and get things done. In the beginning she signed her notes "Carole" but later with just a simple "C." I called them C-Notes and saved a lot of them as sort of a scrapbook chronicle.
Carole was very determined, hard working and dedicated. She had her goals and nothing could could get in her way. She later gained a position at Lexmark
and after years of scraping and saving and carefully building her credit ratings she bought her own house in 1999.
I stayed on at the old homestead. One day Bonnie showed up at the house with a puppy that had been abandoned at a tire store.
After a sales pitch of "mutts have the greatest personalities" and "little feet means they grow into little dogs" I agreed to a brief trial period that lasted several years. I called her Amber.
Also in 1999 I adopted a cat named Raintree. I thought it proper that a puppy should grow up with a kitten and all would be peace in the world.
It was an exciting peace. When I was at home I left a window open in Carole's old bedroom so they could come and go as they pleased. Amber would go out occasionally go out but mostly liked to stay in around me. On the other hand Raintree loved to bring the world home to us.
She was continually bringing birds home and letting them loose in the house. Once I looked over and she had a snake trapped and coiled up in a corner. She was staring at me like, "What do I do now?" One night I was sitting at my computer desk and felt Raintree come and lay down on my bare feet. It was a wonderful warm and fuzzy treat but when I looked down I found the head of a freshly killed rabbit laying there. I thanked her sincerely and carried out the head.
Then there was the early morning hours when I was awakened by strange noises in the living room. I found Amber and Raintree sliding a badly frightened mouse across the floor, back and forth between each other.
Our house seemed to become a neighborhood mystery to the kids that lived on the street. On one side was a municipal storage lot, behind was an empty field bordered train tracks.
I valued my privacy so I let a Burning Bush grow wild and entirely block the view in to the front picture window.
A Kudzu vine had taken root at the neighbor side of the house and I let it grow rampant over that side and around to the front. I guess all that presented a spooky image of a recluse old man not to mention the comings and goings of animals through the windows.
Several times I caught glimpses of kids peaking in the windows. A group of girls came to the door once offering to clean my house for money but I think it was probably to get a glimpse of the mysteries inside. At one time I decided I would teach Raintree to walk with me on a harness and leash. She didn't like it. 
After some indoor practice I took her out the side door and we turned to head towards the street. Just at that moment a little girl on a big, plastic three-wheeler came to stop on the front sidewalk at the corner. Raintree decided to try to escape by straining at the harness up onto her hind legs, screaming and clawing franticly at the air with her front paws.
I'm sure it looked like I was trying to hold back the mad cat from attacking because with bulging eyes the little girl whipped her vehicle around and peddled away as fast as her legs could pump.
Finally, in November of 2001 the furnace went out. I crawled underneath the house to relight it to find that a lot of the plastic drainage pipes were haphazardly rigged and suspended by bailing wire and coat hangers. A couple of joints had come apart and the place was flooded with sewage from the kitchen sink and the clothes washer. I repaired the plumbing but could not keep the furnace lit for any length of time.
The landlord had retired to Florida so everything was by phone. For the next couple of months I tried to stay warm with a couple of space heaters while repair men came and went. The furnace needed to be replaced but the landlord only wanted repairs. It had been obsolete for almost 15 years and parts were hard to find. In February of 2002 I finally moved out swearing never to be cold again.