15-foot snowman towers over Iowa family’s home, and neighbors are debating its demise
Snowmen are a form of yard art that always gets a pass from the HOA, but one Iowa family pushed things to the limit this week with a true abominable snowman taller than their home — 15 feet.
And that’s not including the 2-foot-tall stovepipe hat.
It’s in the front yard of Karen Batchelor Peters’ home in Ankeny, and she credits her 6-foot-3 son Curt for the idea. The town is just north of Des Moines.
The family spent eight days building it, with daughters Jeanne and Erica passing buckets of snow up to Curt, as he stood on an 8 foot ladder.
“We started it on January 4 and finished January 12. I came home from work, and saw a big mound of snow in the front yard,” Peters told McClatchy News. “All three of my kids and two of my son’s friends (and my husband Frank and I) worked on it.”
The monster snowman is now getting national media attention, and the Peters family has resorted to putting a light by it for people who drive by at night and stop to take photos.
That, in turn, gave rise to an unusual community debate that Peters decided to host on her Facebook page.
“Due to popular suggestion, we’ll have a contest for what day it will be completely melted,” she posted Tuesday.
“The one who is closest without going past the date will win a prize yet to be determined, but able to be mailed. I will post melting photos in the comments.”
Nearly 100 guesses have been submitted, including an optimist who suggested May 28. The cut off day for guessing is Jan. 15. As of Thursday, about one foot of the snowman had succumbed to melting, Peters said.
A few people have joked a snowman that monstrous is a little “crazy,” but most have welcomed the distraction in a week that included worsening pandemic data and a presidential impeachment vote.
“We are very surprised at all of the attention it is getting! I took a picture of the big snow mound the first day, and got so many messages and texts asking for updates, that I kept updating it,” Peters told McClatchy News. “In this stressful time. I realized it was something fun that made people happy.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 1:17 PM with the headline "15-foot snowman towers over Iowa family’s home, and neighbors are debating its demise."