GILMAN, Minn. — 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.
