HOOPER — Ice and snow isn’t all bad — just ask Jared Taylor, who made the most of the unusually cold weather and created a 20-foot ice castle.
Taylor said he has always wanted to make an ice sculpture. But the last couple of winters have been too warm to get the ice to stay intact.
But when things got extremely cold this week, Taylor knew he was in luck.
He started with a Christmas tree. He brought it outside and turned his sprinkler on it. As it froze, the results, he said, were terrific; so he went to work.
He continued to run his sprinkler, now with the hose inside the tree and the sprinkler head perched at the top.
Jared’s next addition was one of his wife Crystal’s flowering trees, which was in the vicinity. Because she was concerned Jared would kill that tree, he made a shelter around it. That addition actually gave Jared another good base of ice to work from.
“It might be a fatality,” Taylor admitted with a little laugh about the flowering tree.
As the structure grew taller and taller, Taylor wanted the “castle” to be a bit more unique, so he got creative.
“We went to our local church and nabbed some of the icicles,” Taylor said.
He added the icicles to the top, which helped the structure to grow even higher. Each day, much to his wife’s chagrin, Taylor climbed to the top of his castle to add more icicles.
“I got so nervous I couldn’t even watch out the window,” Crystal said of Jared climbing the structure.
At first he used a ladder, but as it got taller with more dimensions, it became easier for him to climb; he even put special chains on his shoes so he wouldn’t slip.
Trying to ease his wife’s concerns, Jared showed his wife a few other structures people had built in Davis County.
“I’m an engineer, so I’m always thinking about these kinds of things. But I wanted my wife to know I wasn’t crazy,” he said.
Crystal said it has become a fun project for her family.
“I thought he was crazy at first, but it’s been fun,” she said.
The couple has five children, each of whom have gotten involved in the project, helping their dad find big icicles and, at times, place them in just the right spots.
“He’s always building and making something,” Crystal said.
The Taylor family turns special lights on the sculpture at night. Jared said many people drive by and stop to comment and ask questions about the structure.
Jared said he thinks the castle will last for quite some time.
To take a look, the castle is located at 6038 W. 5150 South in Hooper.
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