admincorn, Author at Red Barn Corn Maze https://redbarnmaze.com/author/admincorn/ More than a Maze--All Day Family Fun! Thu, 15 Aug 2024 02:13:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://i0.wp.com/redbarnmaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/mini-quilt.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 admincorn, Author at Red Barn Corn Maze https://redbarnmaze.com/author/admincorn/ 32 32 214801081 On Wisconsin! https://redbarnmaze.com/2024/08/14/on-wisconsin/ Thu, 15 Aug 2024 02:02:28 +0000 https://redbarnmaze.com/?p=610 The post On Wisconsin! appeared first on Red Barn Corn Maze.

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During May 2023, Wisconsin celebrated its 175th anniversary of becoming a state.  Although I sketched ideas for other maze designs already, when this came to my attention I knew what our 2023 maze would be.  The flag of Wisconsin has so many symbols representing the rich history of the state; there was no shortage of images to use.

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I reached out to our state assemblyman, Joel Kitchens, and our state representative, Andre Jacque. They connected us with others in the state government who graciously sent me images of each of the flag symbols. They also realized that no one had ever digitized the original symbols. All of the photo images in their system were simply scanned from flags. That's why the sailor and miner have only half arms, because on the flag each has a hand behind the shield.

There was much to learn about the state's history. I found so much of it fascinating, and tried to include the information in banners and posters around the grounds and maze. I don't know how many people actually read them, but I shared as much as possible with our field trip groups.

The 2023 Corn Maze

The maze was almost a little harder for me to navigate, since most of the county lines were straight. The overlay of some symbols in the state kept me from getting turned around. I fit almost all of the flag symbols in the maze. The only one that didn't work out was the pyramid of iron ingots. Keeping corn between the lines would have made the symbol quite large.

We are grateful for everyone who came to visit us in 2023! Some were return customers from 2022, and others sent their friends and family! The fall was quite wet, and many folks needed to hose off their shoes and stroller tires after the maze and pumpkin patch. We are also appreciative of our2023 sponsors, and the different media outlets who shared our state story with their audiences as news articles.

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]]> 610 Oh my, we decided to open a Corn Maze https://redbarnmaze.com/2022/03/21/oh-my-we-decided-to-open-a-corn-maze/ Mon, 21 Mar 2022 15:14:24 +0000 https://redbarnmaze.com/?p=189 We must be crazy. What were we thinking? Fall of 2021 we were spending a weekend away in Michigan with our two youngest, 15 and 9, and looking for something we could all do together. Now, anyone with children of different ages knows that finding an activity that everyone is excited about is a challenge. I found two corn mazes…

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We must be crazy.  With at least four businesses already, five children, animals, and too many community groups to count, what were we thinking?  Fall of 2021 we were spending a weekend away in Michigan with our two youngest, 15 and 9, and looking for something we could all do together.  Now, anyone with children of different ages knows that finding an activity that everyone is excited about is a challenge.  Most often, either a child or a parent ends up dragging their feet along, asking when we are done, or worse yet, staring at a phone the whole time.  I was checking the local paper and found two corn mazes advertised in the area.  Our 15 year old daughter, who would have rather spent the weekend with her older siblings back home, was on board, so off we went.

Our family used to enjoy an annual visit to Door County's former corn maze, but they had been closed for a few years now.  We arrived at the Michigan venue, donned some extra layers (it was chilly) and dove in.  After tackling the maze, we explored the grounds while waiting for a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and apple slingshot.  Kevin and I sat on a bench as we watched our two daughters laughing and racing each other up the hay bale mountain.  Seeing the our two girls laughing together, and all of the other families playing and smiling, Kevin said, "we could do this."  So, our journey began.

We visited a couple more mazes in the fall of 2021.  As we traveled, we made some notes of what we liked and what we would do differently.  Arriving home, we filled our older kids in on our plans, and they started coming up with ideas for a haunted maze, which we hope to do at the end of October.  Although Door and Kewaunee counties have orchards and pumpkin patches, they currently have no corn maze.  Corn mazes appeal to all ages, and our hope is that other families will visit our maze and have the same great experience that we always have had.  It's going to be a lot of work, and I'm sure we'll be questioning our sanity a bit when, in the midst of a hot and otherwise busy June,  we are planting all those pumpkins and plotting the maze in the field.  If it brings families together and gives them a reason to set aside the phones for a few hours, it will all be worth it.

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