At The Farm Gate

August 2008



The dirt on dirt:

Soil, streets and straw deserve credit when due



By Joanie Stiers



Soon after a slice of crust-less toast and half a southern Illinois peach, my daughter began her morning routine of swatting at the sunshine. More specifically, she attempts to rid our home of floating dirt, which seems to sparkle in the sunlight that spills through our east kitchen window.

I tell her about dirt in my attempt to expand her vocabulary, as parenting guides suggest. “These particles are dirt and dust, which collect on your toy stove and the television screen. Some kids may say farmers like Grandpa plant corn in dirt. But we call that soil.”

My daughter must learn the dirt on dirt now because the dictionaries at school give the noun too much mileage. Webster allows “dirt” to be what accumulates on top of my refrigerator and what supports my home county’s 180,000 acres of field corn. Frequently interchanging soil and dirt in conversation signals “you’re not from a farm” to farm folk. But my daughter will learn that more unseemly uses of the rural language exist.

For example, streets turn into roads outside the city limits. We drive down the road to Grandma’s house, walk up the road to see the neighbor, step onto the road to gather bills from the mailbox, and rarely see chickens cross it. My city cousin told my daughter, “Let’s go down the street to see Grandpa’s cows.” I smiled as she walked away and figured she feels the same when I call dinner “supper.”

Down the road and seven miles from the nearest street my daughter would have found Great Grandpa baling hay, never to be mistaken for straw if you want to feed a horse. Straw, a bedding, offers comfort to Uncle Grant’s sleeping pigs and makes great outdoor fall decor on our front porch. Hay, a mainstay in many livestock diets, feeds Great Grandpa’s hungry cows and the goats at the local orchard’s petting zoo.

I still remember when one of my high school boyfriends misidentified barnyard structures to my mom. The general rule: Bins far outnumber silos in Illinois, so choose “bin” if in doubt. The silver, cylindrical storage units are grain bins. Silos are tall, narrow, often blue, and typically accompany children’s barnyard sets – unless you shop at Farm King, where toy grain bins are available.

Beyond which meal I call dinner, I know I have misidentified items in unfamiliar settings. My one-hour tour of a box factory neared an end before the plant manager said, “We make corrugated fiber board boxes. Cardboard holds your Cheerios.” I had been calling the material cardboard for the last 55 minutes of the tour – and the last quarter century of my life.

I anticipate my daughter will give her friends the dirt on dirt by kindergarten to spare them any future embarrassment.