a tractor and a drunk cow

I've often given my friend Shanna crap because she doesn't say "no."  She emails me and complains about the stressful situations she's gotten into because she won't turn clients away.  Not to worry, she dishes it back to me.  She's much busier than I am with her cake making business, but she's been doing it longer.  She's my inspiration, my cookbook and my mentor, via Facebook.  She's really quite amazing.  It's not that I look for opportunities to outshine her (OK, yes I do), but for some reason I take on projects to which I should be saying "no."

Now that the cake turned out to my liking, I can openly admit that I should have said, "I don't have a clue how to do that, so go somewhere else" to my last client who wanted a copy of a Cletrac Crawler tractor for her father's birthday cake.  But I'm too proud to say "I can't."  Instead I said, "Sure! I can do that for you!"

I emailed Shanna for support, "A TRACTOR CAKE? WHAT DID I JUST AGREE TO?!!"  She was very sweet and supported and started by advising me to join the Can't Say No Anonymous support group and ended with a sarcastic "good luck."  I think I could actually hear her snickering under her breath in the email.  I took it as a challenge.

So, I got a little information and a picture or two from my very sweet client and went to work.  She said that "Rug" is a rather simple farmer who loves his tractor, his black Angus cows and his beer.  He also loves grilling - and it made me want to grill up a big juicy Porterhouse.

Here's the cake, complete with strategically placed mud and a lager-drinking Angus (betcha can't say that fast 10 times) I have to admit, this was a very fun cake to make and I'm pretty darn impressed with myself, if I do say so...and I do.

Let the being impressed with me commence.