Country Etiquette

As an Air Force Brat, I'd find myself living either on a base overseas or in the country roaming 2 or more acres when we were stateside. One thing remained true no matter where I lived with my parents and my siblings - only those on a first name basis with someone who lived in our house came to the back door!

Up until recently, this rule of etiquette had been followed by visitors to our little farmhouse; Fed Ex, UPS, Sears and the like always pulled up to the little footbridge, parked their vehicle and then came to knock on the front door. Suddenly, that has changed and I have to say I don't like it and I don't understand it.

Over the last month, we've had a lot of visitors to our house; we've had the Sears Repairman out several times and his visits required lots of drop-offs by Fed Ex or UPS and we've had the Dish guy out a couple of times....and for some reason, every single one of them have pulled to the back and come to my back door.

Those of you who haven't visited our place may wonder just why this is an issue for me - well, I've got four dogs living here at the moment - three labs and a tripod (who comes and goes with our daughter!)! Until recently, anyone who visited our place had to get past their ferociousness to enter the house, especially if you came to our back door. With front door visitors, I could shut the labs into the kitchen part of the house, deal with business without having to remind the labbies about their social manners and then quickly get back to my quiet little life.

We decided to fence in a part of the back yard this spring for the labbies safety and for my sanity. Car traffic on our little road has steadily increased over the past four years due to detours (for the four lane-ing of the county road), Extreme Makeover Home Addition (which brought lots of sight see-ers) and a Johnny Travolta and Salma Hayek movie (lots of Hollywood types who made us offers on the house...at the front door~~as well as more sight see-ers) - all three of which were happening at roughly the same time...not to mention the tractors that travel it several times a day at certain times of the year.

Something about that fence has apparently made folks think it is now okay to come to our back door regardless of whether you know us or not! We no longer latch the back screen door in order to allow the dogs the freedom to come and go as they please - so the minute they see a car they're out that door and at the fence barking.... and I either have to deal with their ferociousness in greeting the visitor or yell "it'd be better if you came to the front door please!" over their greeting.

This week I even had a stranger come through the back gate, wade his way through the labbies and the tripod to knock on my back door to ask if he could pick our corn! I guess he thought he'd fool us all if he came to the back door as if he was on a first name basis with me, Murphy, Callie, Indie and King the Valiant! And then, he left the gate wide open, adding insult to the unwelcome and unsettling intrusion of a stranger suddenly in what amounts to my back yard and knocking on my back door......

Yesterday was the worst - a Fed Ex delivery guy, the Dish guy, and another person who just decided to drive around our house was the final straw (I know, I know, perhaps some of this aggro is the coming and going of two young adults who have suddenly descended upon my quiet little life....but, whatever!) So, last night over dinner, we decided that our little footbridge will get some dressing up this summer....we're putting an arbor over it and possibly even an arrow that points all business people and strangers to our front door~....for the rest of you who are on a first name basis....you still have a choice...depending on how much you love labbies and a little tripod!

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The back of the house in which portions of "Lonely Hearts" was filmed
...this house is to our left of us across our fields

One of the stars of the film "Lonely Hearts"
walking down the road that fronts the John
Travolta house



Before shot of the house from Extreme Makeover Home Edition
- we are six miles from this house and Hunter and the boy who
lived here were in the same third grade class.


After shot of the house Hunter's classmate now lives in.
The entire town got in the spirit of cleaning up their homes
after the Extreme Makeover Crew updated and repaired
another six homes in the little town.