Dirty business

I just got back from a week of visiting Gretchen and Mädchen in Wisconsin, and was a bit confused while driving to the cabin from the airport when Mädchen started saying "see dirtpile...see dirtpile...". Huh? Well, there was indeed a waist-high dirtpile a couple of houses down, which Mädchen constantly talked about and insisted on seeing and waving to ("hi, dirtpile") from the car. I'm not sure whether her excitement about a dirtpile says more about her, about us as parents, about her cousin (who was evidently convinced that this particular dirtpile was a veritable ecosystem unto itself and played a key role in bringing the dirtpile to Mädchen's attention), or about the excitement of life in Wisconsin.