GILMAN, Minn. (AP) — A farmer in central Minnesota has created a towering tribute to winter's excess.
Greg Novak says he's invested
hundreds of hours to build a 50-foot snowman named "Granddaddy" that he
hopes will wake onlookers from their winter doldrums. And he admits it
has some neighbors questioning his sanity.
Granddaddy began to take shape
earlier this winter when the Gilman farmer needed to move mounting snow
piles away from his greenhouses.
"As long as you're moving it, might as well do something practical with it," Novak said.
Friends and family pitched in to
help with Granddaddy, or to do farm chores while Novak worked on
building the snowman. Novak used skid loaders to pile snow and a silage
blower to direct snow into stacked cylinders, the St. Cloud Times
(http://on.sctimes.com/1krGcSc ) reported.
Gerald and Diane Harbarth were among
the amused onlookers Sunday. They drove more than 70 miles from
Brownton to get a look at the mammoth snowman.
The Harbarths learned about
Granddaddy on a television news report, but craning their necks to see
it in person was something else entirely.
"This is unreal," Gerald Harbarth said.
For Novak, that was the whole point of creating Granddaddy.
"It puts a smile on people's faces," Novak said. "When people smile, you know you've done a good thing."
Granddaddy is but a mere child
compared to efforts in the small community of Bethel, Maine, in 2008.
Residents there claim the world record for the tallest snowperson, a
122-foot snowwoman named Olympia after the state's then-U.S. Sen.
Olympia Snowe.
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Information from: St. Cloud Times, http://www.sctimes.com
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