Photo submitted to Times Observer Jim and Vicki Stec’s snowman, built with help from Carri and Lucas Stec.

Photo submitted for publication
Larry and Connie Upton’s snowman, located on Mickle Hill near Garland, added snow children to the friendly neighborhood competition

Jim and Vicki Stec have started a trend. Last year, the couple decided to celebrate the season by building a hay bale snowman. This year, the snowman building has become a “friendly competition,” as their neighbors Larry and Connie Upton decided to join the fun. Uptons’ snowman this year includes the addition of snow children. is year. “People drive by to see it, they stop and take pictures,” said Vicki. “We welcome them to stop by and take their pictures with them,” she said.

According to Vicki, each bale of hay is four feet tall, so a snowman completely assembled is around 12 feet in height. She said that, for their snowman, it took a few days to prepare all of the components and that she and her family – her husband and daughter Carri and son Lucas, put the snowman together on Thanksgiving day.

Each bale is wrapped in plastic, which many farmers use to conserve the bales until they’re ready to feed them. In their case, Vicki said, the hay on their farm gets fed to their beef cattle, as it does on the Upton farm as well.

This year, said Vicki, they improved on last year’s snowman by repeating the wooden discs painted black for the eyes, mouth, and buttons, and that they used a funnel painted red for a nose, a garbage can hat, rakes for arms, and a paint can welded to a pipe as a traditional corncob pipe. “My son is the creative one in the family,” said Vicki, laughing.

While they don’t have actual neighbors per se, said Vicki, as they’re so far out in the country, she would love to see it become a tradition among others in their area.

And they love to see people stopping for photos.

Of course, said Vicki, “the farmers don’t like it. They say ‘that’s cow food,’ but the wives like it, so they begrudgingly help us.”

The Stec’s snowman is located on Hilltop Drive, Ross Hill, near Torpedo. The Upton’s is located on Mickle Hill near Garland, Vicki said.