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.)

Tractor Fever

Tractor fever: It's a malady that can strike at any time. Symptoms include restless leg syndrome, tapping fingers and a general malaise.

The cure? Getting behind the wheel of a tractor and actually getting some field work done. (The previous cure was getting in a car and driving 3,255 miles.)

It has been so dry this summer that the guys stayed out of the tractor cab for most of June and July. At the County Line, Jake is often disking wheat stubble during or right after harvest. This year, even the weeds were struggling to survive.

It wasn't until we got about 2 inches of rain within the past 3 weeks that the weeds have started to thrive. And the guys could begin the road to recovery from their drought-imposed tractor fever.

Randy chose to use the fallow master on the wheat stubble fields, rather than a disk. The fallow master leaves more residue on top of the ground, decreasing the chances that the ground will blow.

(Pulling the fallow master.
Sorry the photo is a little blurry. It was bouncy in the passenger seat of the tractor!)

Who'd think we would welcome the sight of weeds in the field? Well, we didn't really welcome weeds. But having that little "rough around the edges" look gave us a little hope that something besides weeds might grow too.

I, for one, prefer the well-groomed look.