"Dubbed "Parker" after the street he calls home, the supersized snowman is the creation of Shirley dad Eric Aalerud, who said the idea first took shape last winter while he was home with a newborn - and a lot of extra time. "We were in the house, bored, and I was like, I've gotta do something," he said. "Newborns just lay around all day.""
"Last year's version stood at about 15-feet-tall. This winter, with more snow to work with, Aalerud decided to go bigger - even if it meant extra work once his equipment hit its limit. "The snow blower only blows about 15 feet," he said. To get past that height this year, Aalerud said he eventually had to switch from blowing snow to moving it by hand - building up the base, then climbing onto a platform and hand-shoveling snow to form the roughly 6-foot-wide head."
""I was sore for a week after doing this one," he said. But Aalerud said the reaction is what makes it fun - something that's just as entertaining for his family to watch as it is for visitors to experience. "Every five to 10 minutes, there's someone standing out there taking a picture with the thing," he said. "Inside we watch everybody stopping while we rock the baby.""
A towering snowman called Parker rose to roughly 20 feet this winter on a Shirley driveway, drawing steady visitors for photos. Eric Aalerud began building oversized snow figures last winter while home with a newborn and expanded this year as storms added more snow. The project required switching from a snow blower to hand-shoveling and climbing onto a platform to sculpt a roughly 6-foot-wide head, leaving Aalerud sore for a week. Neighbors and passersby stop every few minutes to take pictures. Aalerud's wife moved from skepticism to delight, enjoying watching people stop. Plans exist to make Parker even bigger next winter.
Read at Boston.com
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