A 50-foot snowman may have taken a farmer in central Minnesota hundreds of hours to build, but the result is a spectacle to behold.
The builder of the giant snowman – aptly named ‘Granddaddy’ – Greg Novak, said he hoped that onlookers would enjoy the sight of such a massive snowman as a sort of tribute to this year’s harsh winter.
He admits that some neighbors are questioning his sanity at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped him from building his 50-foot snowman. It all started earlier this winter, when Novak began moving snow piles away from his greenhouses .
He noticed as he moved the snow that it was forming into something and decided to start his project: “As long as you’re moving it, might as well do something practical with it,” he said.
He used skid loaders to pile the snow high and then employed the use of a silage blower to direct the snow into stacked cylinders. Gerald and Diane Harbarth drove more than 70 miles on Sunday to see the 50-foot snowman.
Novak spoke to reporters about the reasons why he built the snowman in the first place: “It puts a smile on people’s faces. When people smile, you know you’ve done a good thing.”
Even though the 50-foot snowman in Minnesota is a massive one, it’s only small compared to the world record holding snowman. Back in 2008, residents in Maine built the world’s tallest snowman at a huge 122-feet-high.
In fact the world breaking Maine snowman wasn’t a snowman at all it was a snowwoman! And her name was Olympia – named after then state’s Senator Olympia Snowe.
[Image Via Video Sceencaps From CBS Minnesota and KARE]