How do you explain to someone who has never left the city what a grain bin is? I have never contemplated this question until today.

I received a phone call this morning from a truck driver who had a delivery for our family feed mill. He needed directions and was hoping I could help him. I quickly realized this gentleman was directionally challenged as he had no idea which way was East or West, North or South. He was in the wrong town and had missed the road leading to our town. After what seemed like hours, I finally got him on the right highway coming towards our mill. I told him to turn right at the two big grain bins that sat next to the highway. He said, “What’s that?” I told him it was a large round circle that was silver, that it held corn and beans. He said, “I have no idea what you mean.” I then told him it was a round building that was silver and had a point on the top like a cone. He said, “I have no clue what you are talking about.” So I tried a different approach, I told him to look for the elevator. To this he replied, “What do you mean? I hate driving in small towns.”

By this time I was trying not to laugh. I knew this gentleman had never been to rural America before. In his mind I was speaking a foreign language. I was running out of ideas of how to explain what a grain bin looked like over the phone. I finally told him to call me when he went past the junction of two roads and I would talk him the rest of the way to the mill. He did call me, and when he saw the mill, he said, “I have no clue what I am looking at, it looks weird. These don’t look like no buildings I’ve seen before.” When he came inside the mill, I quietly told him he was looking at a grain elevator, or a feed mill, and that the large silver structures were called grain bins. He said, “this is weird. I can’t wait to get home.”

My experience today reminded me that the majority of our society has no idea what a grain bin looks like, much less what it is used for. This was a shining example of why agriculture needs to engage with our consumers on a daily basis. The next time this truck driver is told to turn at a grain bin, he will know what a grain bin looks like and what it is used for.

As for me, I am working on a better way to describe what a grain bin looks like!