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the driveway. They were a little late in arriving for their day in the country, and Julia and I wondered if they had experienced car trouble. I jumped into the station wagon and drove out to meet them, and to offer help if necessary.
But the only trouble was our driveway. They had parked their car at the entrance for safety. To them the grassy gravel had looked too risky to be driven on.
But at least these guests had found the farm, and had trusted our instructions. Other visitors have at times failed to show up. Later they explained they couldn’t find us. All they could see at the end of the map route was a five-barred gate, and an empty field. To their city eyes there was nothing but grass and sky, and grass and sky are nothing.
They did not see the fox trail marked by a tuft of red hair where it went through the wire fence. They did not see the country eyes looking at them — the woodchuck snuggled in the entrance to his hole, the black Rappahannock hawks floating in the air currents and looking down from above.
Even delivery vans have turned around with their load, the driver telling the foreman back in town that “Nobody could live down there!” Now, if it is an important delivery, I ask them to phone ahead, and then I go up and sit on the gatepost and wait for them.
On the otherhand our country friends don’t have any of these difficulties. For them, the approach to the house is very much like their own, and the driveway, some of them allow, is considerably better. Actually our grade is no more than 7 or 8 percent, which seems to us to be less than some parts of the carefully cut state highway.
Any city person planning a trip to the country should be careful to choose the right day. Does that “empty” field contain egg-laying box turtles, bobwhite quail on the nest, or giant sun-bathing snakes? Days like the climax of fall colors on Skyline Drive are well advertised, and are enjoyed by throngs of city folk who make a habit of seeing the foliage. We have come to know that time of year as “Leaf-watchers Week-end.”
But if they came to our farm on March 24 they would hit “Woodchuck Visiting Day,” something relatively unknown and unadvertised. On or about that day the male woodchucks roam the fields looking down burrows for receptive females. They don’t stay long —15 minutes or so — woodchucks are ornery even with each other. Some ’chucks hardly get their nose down the hole before they are chased away.
Then again, someone dropping by on April 10 would see the arrival
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