Thar she blows! Snow sculpture shows a great blue

Renee watches her 4-year-old grandsons, from left, Demetrius and Malaki, play on the whale on Thursday. (Harrison Thorp photo)

LEBANON - There’s a whale of a snow sculpture on River Road.

Well, actually it’s a snow sculpture of a whale.

Every year Renee Mueller builds a sculpture made of snow to celebrate the birthhday of her mom, who lives in Panama City, Fla.

She’s fashioned alligators, bears, dolphins, all types of wildlife.

This year could be her crown jewel.

The blue whale, fashioned after Moby Dick, runs the length of her house and much of her driveway. Its mouth of pearly whites – or blues – and all the rest of the giant mammal were intricately carved with her hands, a shovel and a tomahawk, she said on Thursday.

She’s been working on it since the beginning of the month to get it ready for her mom’s birthday, which was Feb. 24.

Mueller said she’s spent countless hours – too many to count – building her snow beast. She said many days were spent just shoveling the snow from one side of the driveway to the other to gather enough “material” for her art.

She said the tail at first went in another direction, but it kept snowing and they had to made adjustments. The direction of the tale was moved toward River Road and work continued with the mouth curving around toward behind the house.

She said the blue tint comes from black food coloring that turned blue from moisture of constant rain and snow.

Her grandchildren, Malaki and Demetrius, like nothing better than sledding off the whale’s tail into a frozen swamp beside her home, she said.

As she speaks the pair are forever moving about the whale playing on its back and fin, which she says will likely be changed to a blowhole today to make the sculpture more authentic.

“I’d like to get some kind of water shooting up out of the blowhole,” she said.

Her masterpiece, it seems, is a work in progress.

And new ideas for improvement are swimming in her head.

A close-up of the whale's mouth.

If you want to see the sculpture, Mueller’s home is about three houses beyond the power lines heading toward Rochester, on the left.

Just make sure you get there before it warms up. No worries.