Extraordinary GPS

You just thought GPS stood for Global Positioning System.

Here on the County Line, it stands for Great Plains Spouse (emphasis added by yours truly.)

Yes, there are farms who have authentic GPS units in their tractors and combines. We aren't one of those farms.

So Randy's Great Plains Spouse was called into duty yesterday morning. Instead of pushing a handy-dandy button to find where he is in this big old world, his County Line GPS had to:

1. Find a yellow flag along the ditch.
2. Walk "five large paces" south of the flag and mark that in the dirt. (We are highly scientific here.)
3. Park the pickup door so that it aligned with said mark. 
4. Sit and read my book until the tractor got so close I was afraid it was going to hit me.

Repeat at a new location with the following variation:

1. Walk "five large paces" north instead of south.

My services were needed so Randy could start disking in a couple of fields. Earlier, he marked off the fields so he'd know where he wanted to disc to begin preparing the ground for a new wheat crop to be planted this September. 

He'll leave part of the field unworked. It will be summer fallowed, in other words, leaving the ground out of production. For wheat ground, he's often trying to get rid of cheat grass or rye by leaving the ground fallow for a season.

When he started the field on the other end - half a mile away - he aimed the tractor hood for the pickup door. That gives him a target to aim for and makes for a straighter line - theoretically anyway.

It's not that we are opposed to new technology like GPS. Our budget might be.

However, this Great Plains Spouse unit is actually fairly economical. Really. (Unless you take my teeth into consideration.)