: loose earth or soil

: a substance (such as mud or dust) that makes things unclean

: a person or thing that has no value

While many may see no value in dirt, my world and values are built on it. The loose earth and soil my family farm stands firm upon in rural Ohio is the foundation of my life and future. From the breaking of soil for shelters of God’s creatures, to the plowing of the earth to plant seeds for our nourishment, it is our farm My grandfather and father built what I know and have instilled the value of God’s dirt in my life. Wednesday afternoon I walked out to our field and just laid up the earth’s dirt and green grass under a shad tree on our property line in front of a cornfield. I played “Dirt” by Florida Georgia Line on my phone and the lyrics resonated with me as I reminisced on my childhood playing in farm dirt, now living my life upon it as a young woman.

“Dirt” is the first single from Florida Georgia Line’s upcoming album, Anything Goes.

It was written by Rodney Clawson and Chris Tompkins.

You get your hands in it (Our home was built in the 1800’s, my parents refurbished it and made it our home)
Plant your roots in it (My grandfather always planted a garden behind our home)
Dusty head lights dance with my boots in it (dirt)

My brother with out late papa picking in the garden, Digging up the earth to build shelter for our pigs

You write her name on it (my brother always writes me funny messages in the dirt on the barn walls for me to find)
Spin your tires on it (I have gotten the truck stuck in our field many times)
Build your corn field, whiskey (We are surrounded my corn fields and watching it grow is a favorite country past time)
Bonfires on it (dirt) ( I will always remember homecoming bonfires as a young cheerleader in a small town)
You bet your life on it (Dirt is something we all rely on existing and giving us life though water, food and build shelter upon each day)

My dad with his old blue truck on our farm in 1982

Its that elm shade
Red roads clay you grew up on
That plowed up ground that your dad
Damned his luck on that post game party field
You circled up on
And when it rains you get stuck on (I remember going out to play in a mud hole with my brother as a child.)

Drift a cloud back Behind county roads
That you run up
The mud on her jeans that she peeled off
And hung up
Her blue eyed summer time smile
Looks so good that it hurts
Makes you wanna build
A 10 percent down
White picket fence house on this dirt

My dad started our farm in the 1970’s, Here I am sitting on his old blue tractor as a baby

You came from it, And some day you’ll return to it

My dad has built our farmland upon faith and when things go for the worst faith in what the earth provides is all we have to cling upon. As I lay upon this mountain of dirt in the middle of our farmland, I think of the times when I wish it would all just turn to dirt and the times I wouldn’t want to live any other way. We as farmers take on more than required of us, more stress than what feels necessary, more struggle than what feels appreciated. We continue to place value and reliance in the earths dirt for the future generation. We farm for all who choose to not build their livelihood on it, grow their food in it, bet their life on it. This is my empire of dirt. Dirt have value, I came from it and have returned to it.