I finally smartened up about gunk in gasoline containers. Smaller really is better, in most situations.

For decades, my “rites of spring” included cussing and fussing as I tried to resurrect mowers, chain saws, string trimmers or similar small-engine machines from winter slumber.

I would wheel a mower outside, see leftover gasoline in its tank, and then pour more gas — from the same five-gallon container that had sat untouched since I filled it the previous October.

I would yank the starter cord, pull, cuss; yank, pull, cuss.

I would smell gasoline and recognize a flooded carburetor. I would let the mower sit until I quit gasping for breath. Then I would yank, pull, cuss, yank, pull, cuss, all over again.

Sometimes, I got lucky. The mower started, emitting clouds of smoke while sputtering into usefulness.

More often, I hauled the mower to a repair shop where they rebuilt the carburetor. That was costly and by the time I got the mower back, the yard in Warren or in DuBois had little seed tassels sprouting atop the grass, giving our home a “hayfield” look. At the shop, they sometimes cited “bad gas,” but either they didn’t tell me, or I didn’t hear them say that “old gas” is “bad gas.’

Then Uncle Sugar started to make refiners add ethanol to gasoline. Ethanol in gasoline makes start-up problems worse for small engines.

I had an “Aha!” moment. We now live on a small farm in the country. We mow five or six acres instead of the citified lawns I had when I was a “townie.” Those lawns took perhaps an hour of walking behind a mower. These yards (fields, really) take eight or nine hours a week, even with riding mowers. Big difference. Big cost difference, too, from the effects of bad gasoline.

I got card-based access to no-ethanol gasoline from a nearby self-service dealer. It costs a bit more, true. But when I use it properly, my small engines usually start.

In spring and summer, I trek to the dealer about twice a month with my three five-gallon cans of gasoline. There is no need to add fuel stabilizer since the mowers gulp the stuff as though it were water. The gasoline gets used before it gets old.

But I also bought a one-gallon gasoline container for smaller engines. I mix up my oil-and-gasoline mixture in those small batches to use them up within a month or so. The oil additive bottles contain a fuel stabilizer that prolongs the life of each one-gallon batch, but I still remix with fresh gasoline every two months at most.

The engines usually start right up — more or less. This year, the walk-behind mower was balky. Its computerized, fuel injected innards don’t have a manual choke, so I am reduced to intermittent pulling and cussing. This year, I only needed two rounds of that.

On the day that I wrote this, I started up our string trimmer and chain saw. Both purred. I smiled.

Gasoline does not keep for long periods of time. Its components tend to separate, and sludge-like compounds float within it. They cling to fuel injector nozzles and choke plates, gumming up (sometimes literally) the works. This happens within months unless fuel stabilizer is used.

I first got a gasoline-powered mower when I was a teenager. I bought it with my paper route and part-time job money to make it easier to mow our 100 foot by 80 foot side yard. It did that — until I let the gasoline get gummy.

Looking back, I don’t know why I persisted in stubbornly using too-large containers for gasoline and/or letting the gasoline sit unused for far too long. Convenience, I suppose, and fewer trips to buy gasoline.

But that shortsightedness caused me to aggravate my shoulder bursitis, pump my blood pressure to dangerous levels and, in recent years, come close to popping a few aneurysms now adorning some critical blood vessels.

Disposing of aging gasoline can be managed by several methods. If the remnant is small, I dump it into the 36-gallon gasoline tank of my pickup truck. A pint or so of “expired” gasoline, even mixed 50:1 with oil, gets diluted to unnoticeable proportions.

If the remnant is larger than a quart or so … no. I don’t allow that to happen these days. Starting in September, I draw down my at-home supply from three five-gallon containers to just one, and then parcel it out. Last January, I let the snow blower run for an extra half-hour just to consume the gasoline that would have sat idle while we wintered in Florida.

Today’s small gasoline engines are technological marvels by comparison with the carbureted putt-putters of my childhood.

But gunk is gunk. So I avoid gasoline gunk whenever possible.

Even the dogs appreciate that; I cuss less and hand out biscuits more often.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: notniceman9@gmail.com