The Abandoned Farmhouse

{This is the photo I posted to my Instagram the other day. I decided to convert the photographs to b&w to convey its antiqued moodiness that hovers around the farmhouse as you pass it. }

 

 

Dear Diary,

 

Visible from our property stands an abandoned farmhouse that piques my curiosity.

 

 The No Trespassing sign is foreboding, the property barren. It is creepy that curtains are visible through the broken upstairs windows, and the entrances into the home are boarded up. Yet, the grass is always mowed and a couple years ago, a fresh coat of white paint was applied to the front of the house.

 

It is obvious someone is trying to maintain the property. 

I try to assume what the surrounding area may have looked like when this farmhouse wasn’t abandoned. At some point, there was a farmer here collecting his livelihood from the fields. He came home each night, possibly to a wife and children, judging by the pink window treatments that still hang on one of the windows.

And I admit that it saddens me a little to know at some point, the earth no longer sustained the inhabitants here. Instead, as the city of Minneapolis and its suburbs expanded south, the farm grounds became subdivisions. Eventually, those inhabitants shut the door behind them, never to return again.

Try as I might, I cannot determine a house number for research on its property record.

Questions remain – what is so significant about this house that the city is letting it stand? And if it has been saved from demolition, why isn’t it being restored to resurrect its former glory?

WHO is trying to care for this property?

 

There is a very good possibility that I will never know this home’s story.
And I'm not sure I can let it remain unknown.