Ghetto is the new awesome.

While we're always finding new things to invest in, and new things to buy - farm life means that you can basically always find a use for things. There is virtually always something that you can do with something that's old and seems useless.

While it may seem pack-ratty to you - we use everything until it literally breaks in half. Or is sawed in half. Or is held together by elastic bands.

You see - we stretch everything..we make it work, and pull it together.

Okay - so not so much ME - as the guys. The guys are good at these things.

I'm usually just the one that's aiding in the destruction.

I DIGRESS.

So - we've got some ghetto things going on.

Like this van. We've got this van that I swear is thirty+ years old. It's been on its last legs since *I* was a kid. But it's still going.

Sure, you've gotta open the trunk with a wrench. And if the window is rolled up, you have to open the drivers door from the inside through the passenger door. And don't even think about taking the key out of the ignition..that thing STAYS there..it does not leave..because once it leaves..it's not going back.

But other than that - it's a PERFECTLY usable vehicle.

As long as you can sing along to the engine (it's too loud to hear the radio - which I'm not even sure plays anymore) and you don't mind the seat a little bit wet after it rains because the windows don't really close so well. I like to think that the wet seats replace the airconditioning that no longer works - it's VERSATILE, that vehicle. It adapts to it's new environment and makes changes so that everyones needs are met.

So really - not so much ghetto as GENIUS.

Then we have an old OMRON cash register. This thing is probably out of the 70's - maybe even the 60's. It still works. It's tempremental as a pregnant woman in her third trimester in August - but she works. Sometimes she'll ring in things when you're not looking - causing your jaw to drop as a subtotal comes to thousands of dollars - but most days..she's pretty alright.

Except that she's had to have a few surgeries. Sometimes you've got to give her time to warm up in the morning with a few brief transactions, before she can really handle a crowd. And don't think about hooking up a scale to her anymore - she's all - I'm too told to cohabitate - I blow up stuff if you attach it to me - I'm old and unpredictable - let me be.

But other than that...and..you know... the elastics that hold her insides together - that have to be replaced on occasion..she's fine. She's making it just okay. We only pull her out for special occassions or when someone else breaks - but she's old faithful - always in the back waiting to jump in when one of the younger flashier models gets moody and has their time of the month and she's all "I USE TO WALK TO SCHOOL IN THE SNOW. UPHILL. BOTH WAYS." and gets 'er done.

Finally (for this edition of Ghetto Farm, anyway) we have my brothers first dirt bike.

Which is literally..his bike. That's covered in dirt.

Okay. That's a lie. It's MY bike - that's covered in dirt.

My bike that was cut in half by my darling brother. Who then took apart a lawn mower..and attached the motor to *my* bicycle.

And then attached the whole thing back together (he was like, ten - before he was old enough to buy his first dirt bike - that came a couple of years after this..)

So it's a little bit of a ghetto lawnmower bike.

And by ghetto I do mean awesome.

And by awesome I do mean a deathtrap.

And by death trap I do mean...it starts when you pulled the pull cord on the lawn mower. And doesn't so much STOP - because he had to take off the pedals to put in the motor, and thus the breaks..to fit on the motor. And even if he did have breaks..there was no way to switch gears on a lawn mower...and you lawn mowers have way more power than you think - you can't just stop a lawn mower on a bike with regular breaks - you'd break your noggin. For real. So to break..you mostly just had to ride around until you're going to pass by something soft-esk...and then tuck and roll. And then you'd have to run back to find the bike-lawn mower that had fallen to the ground and was still running, and turn the motor off....or else get back on..and do it all over again.

Basically...we can't get cable and just got off of dialup internet a couple years ago.

..Pretty sure that's all the explanation need for our level of *cough* awesome.