And given the amount of snow that has fallen in Maine in the past month, it seems inevitable that snow giants would appear this winter.

One such behemoth materialized this weekend in the dooryard of a local man who, with his two sons and one of their friends, decided that the enormous mound of plowed snow outside the family’s Route 184 home could serve a better purpose.

So they set to work, carving and shaping and filling in until the mountain of snow took on a familiar wintertime profile, though on a much bigger scale. Now the three-tiered snowman, complete with round saw blades for buttons and eyes, and an inverted garbage can for a hat, sits facing the mouth of the driveway, causing double-takes by passersby who might or might not have seen photos of the giant proliferating across the Internet via social media.

The snowman stands about 15 feet tall and its base is about 20 feet wide.

Attempts Monday to contact homeowner Sean McLaughlin were unsuccessful but, according to the Town of Lamoine’s Facebook page, McLaughlin made the giant snowman over the weekend with his sons Remington and Jasper and their friend, Kaleb Payson.

“Sean says it took the boys only about four hours to chisel away at the pile of snow he stacked up with his mini excavator,” town officials wrote on the Facebook page.