Snow!!! there are times when I like it!!!
Way back when I was actually a kid and not just one in an aging body, I loved to build snowmen. Oh, i still build snowmen, but nowadays they are like stacks of graduated snowballs, due in part to there being alot less snow, over time the term "alotta snow" is about 4" now instead of snow so deep it topped you boots and that is why before you went outside to play in the snow your Mom put bread wrapper bags on your feet before you put on you warm woolly socks and big ole snowboots and went out to play....Like you could barely even walk let alone play wrapped up, buttoned down and zippered up in all of those clothes!!!!
But on one of those days, as I was struggling to build a snowman, being encumbered by about 6 layers of clothing was getting in my way. I noticed my Dad walking toward me, he was usually asleep at this time of day because he worked nights. "Let's build a snowman!" We rolled huge balls of snow, stacked them up...... and WOW!!! there it was, the best snowman EVER!!!!!
I wish I had a picture of it to show you, gentle readers.
Austria builds world's tallest snowman
Austria is home to the world's tallest snowman, after entering the Guinness World Records on Saturday.
The snowman, nicknamed "Riesi," which roughly translates as "giant" in English, measures a gigantic 38.04 meters, Austrian press agency APA reported.
He smashed the previous record held by a snow-woman 37.21 meters tall, named "Olympia," in the US state of Maine in 2008.
Riesi was built in Donnersbachwald, in the central Austrian ski-region of Riesneralm. He was the brainchild of 52-year-old caretaker Gerhard Peer together with ski-lift manager Erwin Petz, according to the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
The pair originally intended for the snowman to be 40 meters tall, and used snow cannons to build up a hump of compact snow 30 meters wide in a process that took 40 days.
Read more: 'Snow farming' helping to keep Davos a 'cross-country-skiing paradise'
The snow giant survived winds of over 100 kilometers an hour on Tuesday evening, with only his 2-meter hat blowing off and needing to be rebuilt.
"I did it for the children, who for the most part don't know that when there were still real winters with lots of snow, snowmen were built in front of nearly every house," Peer told the Kronen Zeitung.
After the world record was confirmed on Saturday afternoon, celebrations with fireworks were held near the snowman. It is hoped that Riesi will remain standing for tourists to visit until summer.
That’s Some Snowwoman
This is Olympia, the world’s tallest snowman — snowwoman, actually. She was built in 2008 and named after Senator Olympia Snowe. The snowwoman stood 122 feet tall, with skis for her eyelashes and wreaths for her eyes. She wore a 100-foot long scarf, and waved 2 whole 27-foot tall trees as arms. And imagine lugging her 8-foot nose up there!
Wee ones: Olympia had 2 wreaths for eyes, 3 wreaths for jacket buttons, and 2 trees for arms. Of which leafy object did she wear the most?
Little kids: If the snowwoman-builders stuck on a green ski, then a silver one, then a blue, then a red, then started over with green, how many green skis did they use after sticking on 8 in total? Bonus: If they had 20 skis total and needed 8 skis for each eye, did they have enough skis for lashes for both eyes?
Big kids: Olympia’s scarf was 100 feet long, even though Olympia herself was 122 feet tall. How much taller than her own scarf was Olympia? Bonus: If they’d made Olympia by stacking 2 giant snowballs, with the bottom one 6 feet taller than the top one, how big would each snowball have had to be to total 122 feet?
Answers:
Wee ones: More wreaths.
Little kids: 2 green skis. Bonus: Yes, since they needed just 16.
Big kids: 22 feet. Bonus: 64 feet and 58 feet. If they’d been the same size, they’d each be 61 feet tall. As you make the bottom ball 1 foot bigger and the other 1 foot smaller, the difference between them grows by 2…so you go up 3 feet and down 3 feet from 61 to get 2 numbers that are 6 apart.
