Harry Siemens   -- Abe F. Janzen of Plum Coulee, Mb Canada and his wife Elma took in this year’s Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede as they have been doing for many years.

While Janzen enjoys the older equipment and how farmers used to do it many years ago, at 80 years young and two major heart bypass surgeries, he still drives the combine during the harvest and the John Deere track tractor during spring seeding on the family farm he started.

"My difficulty is when I get into the new machinery with the GPS and all the technical stuff, it is pretty hard for me to grasp,” he said. “Sometimes the boys have to set it for me. I enjoy the GPS because then you drive straight as shot and it looks so nice. You don't overlap, and you actually save a little that way.”

He recalled how he presses a few buttons and off he goes.

“At the end of the field you turn around, and press the button again and you go straight again,” he said. “You don't overlap, and that is the good thing. You get a little bid sleepy and you look back and oh you have overlapped by three feet. With GPS, such things don't happen, it is always within inches. It saves fuel, time, and makes a much nicer job.”

While he doesn’t have any investment in the farm anymore, having passed it on to the family and run by his two sons, he can still do what he likes.

“I still do those things which I've always have done and still enjoy it,” he said.