Farmers Weekly Review

Have you ever read the warning written on the top of a stepladder? If you like to see innovative uses of old items, I may have an article for you.

When I was a kid growing up on our farm in Joliet, there was an old cement block building called the milk house that was filled with old, empty milk cans. I never saw any of those cans ever hold milk. My dad had two that he always used for taking gasoline from the farm to the field. He would pour them into a funnel to fill his IH 560 gas tractor.

When I started farming in 1982, I did the same thing. I remember more than once, a friend or hay customer would spy the gas cans and want to buy them. They wanted them for decoration. Many people questioned the safety and efficacy of hauling 15 gallons of gas at a time in an old, used milk can. Like my dad, since I always used the old milk cans for gasoline, I had never bought a plastic gasoline container.

In time, my farm eventually evolved to diesel tractors, and gasoline was rarely needed to be transported to the field. Thirsty diesel engines were fueled from the big tanks at the farm or from a transfer tank in the pickup truck. Recently, the gas tractors had to come out of retirement to do some fieldwork when one of the diesel tractors broke down and headed to the shop.

My wife had an extensive collection of gasoline cans that I inherited when I married her; I thought I would use them since I am now well that my repurposed gas/milk cans are breaking the law, and safety regulations. At the gasoline pumps they post this: Warning — it is unlawful and dangerous to dispense motor fuels into unapproved containers. I proceeded to embark on using approved plastic gas cans on the assumption it would be safer.

Now that I have tried to use plastic gas cans of various designs and sizes, I feel disgust and anger that any product designer/engineer could manufacture such useless containers. Let me vent, something many of the cans don’t have. One 2-gallon can had no vent; I could have ordered a pizza and had it delivered before the jug emptied. Another made me push down an outer sleeve while gas dribbled through a tiny hole around a plastic plug on the end. I believe this 60-year-old farmer with an enlarged prostate pees faster than the gas flowed. Another can had a nice vent, with the cap actually still attached, thanks to a tethering system, and flowed fast. But it only held 1.5 gallons and only had a cap for the vent and not the pour spout.

I finally tested two, 5-gallon cans with disastrous results. One had a flex spout that instantly broke when I bent it. I had to pour it into my funnel, which also took forever since it had no vent, and it gurgled for what seemed like hours while it gasped for air.

The second 5-gallon gas can absolutely takes the cake. I can’t believe someone didn’t accidentally catch on fire during the testing of this product before it made it to the market. I had to use my thumb to hold a button in the middle of the pour-spout for the gas to dispense. Gasoline ran all over my hand, as well as not making it into the tank.

Are these containers safe? How is this an efficient use of my time and a valuable resource like gasoline? How do these containers ever make it into the retail world for sale? I am now going back to get my dad’s old milk cans out of storage and put them back into use.

You cannot judge me if you see me using the milk cans, claiming it is unsafe. I suspect everybody who is reading this article has at one point, climbed up a stepladder and ignored these warnings: Not a step, Do not climb on or above this step.