CORN MAZING!

Here it is–the first aerial photo of this year’s large corn maze. Alliant Energy is the 2008 Sponsor with “Renewable Energy” as this year’s theme. It fits in perfectly with corn. To keep things even more interesting, there will be interactive stations throughout the maze!

If you like the idea of heading into the maze in the dark, don’t miss Wednesday nights in October: The Flashlight Maze. All the lights are off (we live in the country so no street lights) and you try to find your way with just a flashlight. As you can see, one might get a bit confused finding their way. Don’t worry, if you’re not back before sun up, we can always send in the National Guard!

Not everyone knows how the corn maze is created–it’s pretty cool. First the entire 10-acre field of corn is planted in the same manner as all the other fields are planted. (If you didn’t catch my last blog, one acre is about the size of a football field.) In July, once the corn gets about knee high, we pull out that trusty tractor (my fav with the GPS) and program the design into the computer. The tractor “maps” out the grids for the maze. The maze is then broken down into what I call puzzle pieces printed out on paper. We each take a puzzle piece and a container of Round-Up (herbicide) into the field, find the correct grid and blast away! The pattern of the maze is created when the Round-Up “kills” the corn where the walking trails are. This is definitely a situation where you “can’t see the forest for the trees,” but when all the puzzle pieces are put together, it creates a great maze!

Check out our site for photos of previous mazes and make plans to stop out when the corn is high enough to get lost in!

Later!

Dave