Fixing Up the Family Farm

After my parents died, my sister and I inherited the family farm. For the last ten years, she has needed all the profits due to health problems. The farm house and grounds have fallen into disrepair.This year I got a loan, so I can buy her half. This blog will be an account of my efforts to restore it to it's former beauty.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you will see a picture of the front of the farm house when my parents were alive and a picture of it now.

Well, I'm hot and tired from packing my car. Tomorrow morning I leave Florida and drive to my family farm in Ohio. I'm apprehensive but, also, excited. I know the fields will be perfect. They are farmed by one of the best farmers I know. But since my mother died, and we inherited the farm, the house, gardens, and orchard have fallen into neglect. I expect to see a "Sleeping Beauty"s Castle" when I arrive. The drive up to the farm house will be rutted and dusty. It's quite likely that the bored farm boys have taken a bat to my mailbox. In spite of electronic entertainment, drinking beer and bashing mailboxes are still a source of amusement for  them. The English ivy will have covered most of the brick walls, and it may have found a way in around the lose windows on the second floor. Needless to say, poison ivy will rule the yard. There will probably be mold on the plaster walls. I don't have much money, and I'm not very strong, but I love the farm and will do what I can to restore it.