We’ve all heard of snow men built with packing snow, a top had, a carrot for a nose and rocks for eyes and mouth but what about an … Ice Man?

This winter we’ve not had a lot of snow but we have had a lot of cold.  And all these weeks of sub-freezing temperatures has turned our pond into thick field of slippery fun.  Our kids have been cooped up inside all winter, some days it has been so cold they even canceled or delayed school.  For example right now it is -15F outside.

Needless to say we have needed to get out of the house.  Today it was above freezing so we decided to head outside and play on the pond.  A little ice skating, hockey, snow balls and sled riding helps to get the blood moving again. My kids love to go on adventures and one of my daughters likes to create things.  All that ice sitting out there surely there must be something we can do with blocks of ice.  So I busted out my chainsaw and started cutting.

To my surprise it was 7″ thick, (I’ve not seen ice thicker than 4″ since we’ve lived here).

I harvest several blocks of ice from the pond and I tried to think of something useful to do with them.  It turns out that building a snowman was the best idea we could come up with.

The nice thing about an ice man is you can craft the size of the blocks with the chainsaw, the most difficult thing about this is getting the ice out of the pond after it has been cut.  I would shove the ice down then it would pop back up out of the same hole.  It helps to have pry bar to wedge the ice out of the hole.  Once we got the ice out we would place it on a sled and drag it up into the yard.

To build the ice man we stack from largest to smallest.  We used a snow ball and a little water to hold a stick on the side of the ice to make arms, we poured water over the blocks to clean off the snow and dirt.  We placed a hat on the top block to make the head, this children’s hat had a full face knit into it. We placed mittens on the stick arms to complete the man.

The water pour acted as cement as it re-froze between the blocks locking them together.

Getting out with the kids on an adventure like this was a lot of fun and helped us to get out of the house on another sun-less winter day.

if you want to try this yourself here is the low-down.

Supplies: Ice Saw or Chainsaw and a frozen pond or frozen pool, 4″ or thicker.  DANCER: ice less than 4″ thick is not safe to walk on.

Process:

1. Cut ice in square or rectangle or round if possible using whatever means necessary, I used a chainsaw.
2. Make 3 ice blocks that are progressively smaller. I recommend the base to be ~12″x14″, the middle to be ~8″x8″ and the head to be ~5″x5″, all ice should be a minimum of 4″ thick, unless you have a safe way to make ice blocks that are 1″ to 4″ thick.  You can also knock off the corners of the blocks with a chisel to make them appear to be round.  Otherwise your ice man will be shaped like spongebob squarepants… like ours is. Be careful to preserve the flat surfaces so the blocks will easily stack.
3. Pry ice out of pond and place on a sled.
4. Relocate ice to a flat place somewhere in the yard.
5. Stack the ice from largest to smallest, use water to clean the surface if necessary, use snow and water to “cement” the blocks together.
6. Form a snowball with water (if necessary) and poke a stick into the snowball, then carefully stick the snowball with stick on the side of the middle block to make the 2 arms.
7. To make a face you could paint on the ice surface or just use a hat that has a face knit into it like we did.

This is a fun way to go on a winter adventure with the kids, plus its a reason to fire up the chainsaw. The most difficult part of this for me was getting the kids out of the warm house, enjoy.