Early this evening, gasoline splashed all over my right hand while I was preparing to fuel one of our portable generators that (for now) provide the only available electricity for powering this laptop (and thus enabling this Hub to be written at all). Like most such mini-events, the gas splash occurred through sheer carelessness: Even knowing it had been more than toasty warm out here in southern Arizona today, I failed to vent the pressurized fumes in a safe direction. Okay. No big.

In fact, this particular five gallon gas can is notorious for putting fuel in areas other than gas tanks. Perhaps a later Hub on the merits and demerits of various can designs would be in order. For now, there was the matter of a gas-soaked paw to consider, especially since the sheer reek of the thing--though nothing compared to skunk spray--would be enough to sicken my wife and possibly our cats...were I dumb enough to meander back into the camp trailer without cleaning up. Duh.

Without really having to think about it, I simply scooped up a double handful of dirt and used it to scrub the gasified hand. That's when it hit me: Betcha some of our readers don't know you don't need water to freshen up; you can definitely use dirt.

Huh? Wouldn't that just make you...well...dirty?

Surprisingly to some, the answer is: Not necessarily. Campers in general have known this trick for at least decades and more likely centuries. Chickens use dust baths to cut down on mites and other external parasites, so even a "dumb ol' bird" realizes mites and such can be cleansed from one's body using dirt. Hopefully, we humans are at least as smart as the average chicken. Likewise, a children's book I'd read somewhere around the third or fourth grade talked about campers in the 1950's washing their camp dishes in creek sand before rinsing them in a mountain stream. Back then, that sounded pretty smart, although if the camp happened to be downstream from a beaver colony, there remained the possibility of a beaver fever or giardia problem.

Then of course there was the outstanding character (Younger Bear, if memory serves) in the classic movie, Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman as Jack Crabb. One Cheyenne warrior had such an attitude problem that he became a heyoka, a contrary, that is, a man who did everything backward and/or with great unpredictabilaty. He rode his war pony while facing the rump rather than the head. He washed in dirt and dried off in water.... Update: While researching the word heyoka specifically for this Hub, more than thirty years after first seeing that movie, I found that Hollywood had both simplified and twisted the meaning of the word considerably. In the movie, doing things in a sort of reverse order (and having a temper) was all that was shown, but there is clearly a lot more to it than that...and the word itself does not appear to even be from the Cheyenne language, but from the Lakota.

Live and learn. At least I had the spelling right.

At any rate, In our present situation, Pam and I have to be as conservative as possible regarding water usage. While we do have a working well available, and a legal share of that well, we do not yet have a storage tank. Near-future plans include the acquisition of such a tank, preferably no smaller than 500 gallons in capacity, but we can't afford one just yet. Since it requires the usage of one of our generators to power the water pump at the well site, there is the cost of fuel, not to mention the time necessary to load up the generator and haul it over there to start the pumping process. In other words, we can't just throw a switch any time during the day or night and have running water on tap. We need to batch fill, and right now, we don't have a big enough container to make it worth doing.

Our drinking water comes from a machine in town, not terribly overpriced at twenty cents a gallon in five gallon batches, but enough hassle (and even cost) that using any more water than absolutely necessary for washing would be unwise on several fronts.

Thus, whenever possible, I use dirt. Pam avoids this process; it grosses her out. Not to see me using the method, but to consider doing it herself...yuch! Which is all right, because I tend to need to clean up more often than she does, anyway. You might say I really get into my work....

Of considerable interest is the fact that washing with dirt is actually highly effective in getting rid of other stuff, such as (in this instance) gasoline. After two good scoop-and-scrubs, hardly any odor could be detected when sniffing the offending hand. True, not all dirt is created equal. We are fortunate in this regard: Although mostly clay, there is still a fair amount of sand in our land's composition. On the other hand, we've seen this cleaning technique work nearly as well in Montana, Colorado, and South Dakota, each having its own soil makeup.

If water will clean it, for the most part so will dirt. One extreme example is fire: Either water or dirt can be effectively used to combat fire. My wife demonstrated this on our mountain acreage in Montana during a scary wildfire that had us surrounded in 1999. A small but to us very important pile of lumber had begun to burn. Pam turned over a small pile of dirt with our only shovel while I was moving our car away from our cabin. Then she grabbed each burning board, dragged it swiftly through the dirtpile, flipped it over, ran it through again...and then went on to the next board. By "cleaning the fire" from those boards in that way, she saved the entire pile, which happened to our entire supply of on-hand building materials at that moment.

Besides cleaning human hands and pine boards, dirt can also serve as a highly effective bucket cleaner. Out here, pails/buckets are prized items. On occasion, one such container or another will need cleaning. One functional technique is to scoop a bit of dirt into the dirty bucket, perhaps enough to cover an inch or so of the bottom. Then, using a swirling motion while gradually tipping the bucket over at an angle--sort of like placer mining with a goldpan in the old days--allow the "cleansing soil" to escape gradually. When that is done to your satisfaction, but the container could still use some scrubbing, and no way are you sticking your hand in there (who knows what that stuff is that is still stuck to the sides?)...we come to scrubbing with grass.

Naturally, the cleaning techniques work best using both hands to get the job done, be that job dirt-washing one's own hands or grass-scrubbing a grimy bucket. The photos only show one hand because the other was being used to take the pictures.

Also, not every sort of grass works well for scrubbing the inside of a pail. Bunchgrass is definitely the preferred grass type, as the stems are long enough to reach the bottom of the container. Our preferred clump has both green and dry, brittle stems. This particular combination seems to do an infinitely better cleaning job than either green or dry alone, and the green often leaves a fresh "grassy" smell that is somewhat more pleasant than whatever sort of grime formerly hung out in the container.

One shrubby grass, or grassy shrub, or whatever it might actually be...this one looks like a cleaning brush with the handle stuck in the ground. Haven't tried it for cleaning, though. Our land only has a few of them (as opposed to hundreds if not thousands of clumps of bunchgrass), and we're pretty sure the plant would not appreciate being used as a janitorial implement.

Admittedly, all of this "washing with dirt" does not quite obviate the need for water entirely. When I'm working around camp, I'll often enough wipe as much dust as possible on my jeans--which have more than seen their better days, thank you--but a final rinse does no harm and plenty of good. Even so, the amount of water needed is reduced dramatically: Using soap and water in a traditional under-the-tap washup, getting rid of that gasoline odor would have required a minimum of a gallon of water, with a fair amount of that being necessary to get rid of the soap! Using dirt and water separately, the amount of water required is no more than a quart at most.

Later on, after we have our water storage tank purchased and properly installed, my "washing with dirt" practice will unquestionably diminish...but it will not likely ever vanish completely, and for now, saving even one trip to town for more water is a "really big thing".

Lastly, does it really get you clean? Yes, it definitely does. Right after the gas-splash-on-hand incident and the ensuing washing with dirt episode (followed by a minimal-water rinse), I grabbed the digital camera, set it on negative effect, and had fun with a few quick shots before the sun went down...and that delicate mechnism (the camera) is one I would never dare so much as touch with dirty digits.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32