Another in the series of Fun Farm Finds, a.k.a. "What the heck is that doing here?!"
My husband found this while clearing some limbs near the driveway. It was filled with largish rocks. He had an idea it might be an old milk can, and he was right. According to that site, "Until the adoption of farm bulk tanks and tanker trucks in the 1940's and 50's milk was stored, cooled and transported in cans."
Interesting, but we still have no idea how it came to be squished, lying in a low area, and filled with rocks.
Just another farm mystery...
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I've been forgetful, and neglected (among other things) to mention the latest installments of Festival of the Trees and Circus of the Spineless. And of course there's always the Friday Ark.
15 comments:
Somebody used it as a boat anchor?
I seem to recall you're near a big lake. Purdy?
Still see those at auction sales around here sometimes. I would guess it did some sort of duty as a weight. We have a garage door with tall steel cans full of rocks as counterweights. Not milk cans, but I've never looked closely to notice just what sort of cans they are.
I think my dad still has a couple of those in the shed. You do have to wonder why it was full of rocks.
Could have been used as a catfish nest if it's the kind with a wide mouth. Old metal milk cans were used on catfish farms (hmmmm) for that purpose. The rocks would be to weigh it down.
I have one of those on my front porch and it's filled with rocks too. Yes, I put them in there. Why? So I would not loose the rocks. The man who owned the house before me got them from the Panama Canal when it was being built and then dumped them in the yard. When they pop up, I put them in something, milk can, flower pot, etc. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :)
PS- working on getting hawk picture-
Lin, that would've been a good use for it, but we're not that close to a big lake. (We're closer to Inland Lake than Lake Purdy. But I've spent more time at Purdy, especially in the days when we had more time for birdwatching!)
Arcolaura, it stands to reason. I just can't figure out what they might have been weighting, or why...
Nongfah, thanks for visiting! I have been to Thailand but must not have drunk much milk there. :)
Laurie, I looked on ebay, and apparently they're not very expensive, so I imagine lots of people hung onto them.
FC, the problem with that theory is that it's got so many rocks there'd be no room for any fish!
KF our rocks are not nearly so exotic! They're just garden variety rocks.
I did neglect to mention that this was found fairly near an old railroad bed. So maybe it fell off a train. Or that might be one of those red herrings. :)
I keep trying to convince people: they're dropping this stuff out of commercial jetliners from 30,000 feet.
Bankrupt airlines are moonlighting in solid waste disposal.
I have a mailbox in an old milk can on my route. The rocks might have been to hold the post upright.
I second Linda K's idea - I've seen this done in our area, too.
We still have a couple of these milk cans with the lids. Each can had the farmers name on it so that it could be returned to him by the milk truck on the next trip. Our cans still have the brass name plate on them. One is my Grandpa's and one was my neighbors. After they quit milking my Dad used them to haul water to livestock.
I tried to leave a comment yesterday, but it wouldn't take. (I even left a note saying how much blogger still hates me.)
My vote, since you found it beside a road, is that it was used as the weighted base for a mailbox.
I have a milk can on our front porch but it doesn't have any rocks in it. It's heavy enough by itself!
Probably a story there but who knows!!
Maybe the rocks are really petrified milk..
Up here in dairy country the milk can filled with rocks is a common mailbox post holder. The squashed part would fit here in the frozen north as well, as they were often hit by the snow plows. Of course in warmer climes....lol
We had one filled with concrete for our mailbox until the new road went through. Now we have a puny wooden post.
Hmm. Well I suppose it's possible that it was used for the base of a mailbox, but it would've had to have been a mighty narrow pole. The rocks are almost up to the brim. Plus, I would have thought it'd be concreted if that were the case. Plus, it was near the driveway, but quite far from the road, where the mailbox would have been.
Who knows!
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