sometimes living on a farm feels like living in one great big jungle gym. there's tons of exploring to be done, secret forts (err-- cake houses) to be built, rogue patches of rhubarb to pick, and things to climb on. a small round bowl-cut 1993 version of myself would have given anything to hang out on this farm. i was always getting into trouble climbing on our piano and on the fancy statues at ravinia. (in junior high this manifested itself in an indoor rock climbing phase and the aol screen name of roxclimber1. *i know*)

these days it's usually eggboy and eggdad that do the climbing. they climb up into grain bins and onto trucks and tractors for all sorts of reasons, but by far the coolest climbing thing on our farm is a 110 foot grain leg. (here's a visual. the tallest part is the leg, and the things around it are bins.) there are stairs all the way up, and currently there are christmas lights on it to make it look like a candy cane.

but when i say it's the coolest climbing thing, i actually mean it's the scariest climbing thing. i went up there once and it was enough. it was super windy and it sort of felt like being at the top of a roller coaster, only on a roller coaster you're strapped in, so...

the eggparents love it though! they climb up and down when they're preparing for hiking trips, and sometimes they use it as some sort of nutso party trick. i'm pretty sure that some of our wedding guests went up there past dark. oh goodness, i could never do that.

since the lights are up this year, apparently climbing up at night is a hotter ticket than normal, so eggdad commissioned me to make this cake for a darned grain leg climbing party. apparently he's having friends over and we're (they're) going to put coveralls on, climb the grain leg all together, and then come back down and eat cake. sounds horrifying. but you know me: any excuse to make a cake.