Kevin Allenspach

kallenspach@stcloudtimes.com

Greg Novak finished a 50-foot snowman near Gilman in February

Stories and video about the snowman named Granddaddy spread around the globe

April%27s warmer weather means Granddaddy is shrinking%2C but his maker thinks he%27ll last into May

GILMAN – Unlike just about everyone else in Central Minnesota, Greg Novak's 50-foot snowman is sad to see the arrival of spring.

"Granddaddy," as Novak has referred to his snowman — which has received international attention since it was featured in the Times during the first week of March — has started to melt. Warmer temperatures and wind after last Friday's snowstorm blew down the snowman's broom and caused one of his eyes to pop off along Benton County Road 3 several miles north of Gilman.

Novak, a 54-year-old vegetable farmer, rented a lift as he did when he first decorated the snowman in February.

This time, he turned Granddaddy's smile upside down, replaced the lost eye and recovered the broom top, which now sits at the base with the words "See ya" painted on one side.

"My sister has been taking pictures all the way along, from when we built to now when it's starting to melt away," Novak said Monday, when temperatures reached the upper 50s on a breezy afternoon. "I still can't believe all the attention it's gotten. Even now, people are still stopping by every day, and everybody's trying to speculate when it's going to go down."

The snowman's cap has fallen toward the south. Its body is covered with chaff and dirt that was mixed with the snow in late January when Novak used a skid loader to pile it and a silage blower to direct it into stacked cylinders that telescoped up from a 45-foot base.

It took five weeks and hundreds of man hours to complete.

Now Novak says that base, which has mostly turned to solid ice, is nonetheless shrinking — about 39 feet in diameter as he measured Monday.

The snowman's arms, made from the remains of an old auger and two dead trees, have started to droop. But its nose, made from a 55-gallon barrel, is still attached — along with matching blue buttons down its chest.

Novak installed a path of corn stalks and hay from the edge of the county road so people can still view his creation without getting ankle deep in the muddy field.

Near the snowman, a table stands with a mailbox, a notebook register for people to sign and a box of pictures free to visitors.

"I did this once, 22 years ago, and I always thought about doing it again — only bigger, so my nephews and nieces could see it," Novak said. "So many people have said 'thank you' and come from all over — the farthest away was Berlin — that I'll probably do it again. But when that will be, I don't know. It was fun because no one expected it. If people expect you to do it, then it becomes work. And I never meant to commercialize it. I felt guilty putting a tip box on the table, but we've used the money to print pictures to give away, and we've probably gone through 3,000 of them."

Novak's snowman, which has appeared on NBC's "Today" show and eventually drew inquiries from the BBC and the Discovery Channel, might have a little life left.

"If it's still in decent shape this weekend, I might go back up there and turn it into an Easter bunny," he said. "If people thought this was the largest snowman they've ever seen, I imagine it would also be the biggest Easter bunny, too."

But spring has sprung, and Granddaddy's days are numbered. Just how many it has left is debatable, though Novak says it will be a long time before he's totally gone.

"I would expect it will be the middle to the end of May," he said.

Follow Kevin Allenspach on Twitter @KevinAllenspach.

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