Pumpkins can be a finicky crop, but this year they are loving the heat and adequate rainfall. We’ll have some really massive ones, as well as all kinds of colors, sizes and shapes. They will be ready to pick by the time we open in September. If you protect them from excessive heat and from freezing, they will last all fall even if you pick yours early.
Interested in growing your own pumpkins (or other farm-type advice)? Check out this article that we contributed to:
Back in June, we were contacted by Martha Stewart Living about an article on corn mazes for their October 2019 issue. We are pretty excited about the result–we love the magazine!
Martha Stewart Living famous — that’s pretty famous, right?
And here’s the online version of the article with a cool video.
“Hope”, the mascot of the international Crane Foundation, will be making some visits to the Treinen Farm this year.
This year, we are partnering with The International Crane Foundation, located in Baraboo, Wisconsin, which works worldwide to conserve cranes and the ecosystems, watershed and flyways on which they depend. The International Crane foundation staff and volunteers will be joining Treinen Farm this fall for interactive fun and education related to these a-maze-ing birds.
The International Crane Foundation will be at the Treinen Farm for five weekends on Saturdays and Sundays, beginning with Saturday Sept. 28, and ending on Sunday, Oct. 27. Volunteers and staff will be on hand these days from 12 noon to 4 p.m. to offer the following activities.
Last year, when the truly dedicated maze nerds came out of the grapes (as in, the first part of the Fox and the Grapes maze) we heard lots of raving about how hard and awesome they were. We started saying “maybe we’ll make a maze that’s just all kinds of circles.”
Well, guess what–we did, and here’s how you do it. [NOTE: The circle maze is in addition to the Unicorn Maze.]
The ridiculously circular circle
Step #1: Find the Circle Maze (hint: sing “Somewhere, Over the Rainbow” as loudly as you can. Your entire group must participate.)
Step #2: Find all of the numbers in the Circle Maze, add them up, and tell us what you got for a total (no, we will not reveal how many numbers there are, and no, you do not get a map.)
Step #3: The Prize Station staff will tell you if you are correct, and then will rank you on the Maze Nerdiness Scale. (You must decide whether to brag about your ranking or keep it your own little secret…)
Step #4: Extra credit #1: One of the numbers is not real. Plan accordingly.
Step #5: Extra credit #2: Meet someone you don’t know in the Circle Maze. Help each other out. Ask them what their favorite Treinen Farm maze has been (If this is their first time, then ask what their favorite animal is.) Report your findings to the Prize Station staff.
Gold stars will be awarded randomly or as deemed appropriate by the Prize Station staff. The Leaderboard will be an arbitrary, biased account of team rankings for the day. You will need to provide a team name…you may commence arguing with your teammates at any point.
Check out the article featuring our maze on the website Smithsonian.com — I’m super proud of this mention on the Smithsonian site, as the Smithsonian Institute is one of my favorite things. This is an article written by Andrew Amelinckx, originally published at Modern Farmer
Rare unicorn sighting at the Treinen Farm
Number one question at the Treinen Farm this year is “Why are the unicorns killers?”
Let’s go back to how we think up a maze design. I (Angie) am the designer, so basically I get to do whatever I want. But I am willing to accept some input in the idea phase.
Alan (my husband, the farmer): We should do a horse.
Me: Horses are boring. And we did one in 2001. (Our very first maze was a horse and cart.)
Alan: They aren’t boring. And that was a long time ago. How about a mare and foal?
Me: No.
Alan: How about a mustang?
Me: Mustangs are stupid.
Alan: How about a team of —
Me: No.
Alan: How about–
Me: No.
Iris (the farmhand, pipes up from eating her sandwich): How about a Pegasus?
Me: No. Wait…hmmm. No.
Iris and Alan: A Pegasus would be cool. You know, it’s got wings–
Me: I know what a Pegasus is. No.
But, when I think about it a little, it’s not completely out of the question. We did Icarus a few years ago, and the wings were pretty awesome. But we’ve done quite a bit of Greek mythology, and it seemed repetitive to jump into it again (we did the Owl of Athena in 2014.) And an ethereally lovely winged horse alone was terribly boring–I couldn’t really think about what we’d talk about. A big part of coming up with the maze design has to do with how our staff will be able to engage customers–sometimes they are telling a myth or a fable, or explaining technology or math concepts. They couldn’t just stand there and say how beautiful horses with wings are.
But when I hit the internet to check out pictures of pegasi, the whole concept of the maze clicked almost instantly. We didn’t need a winged horse–that was definitely boring. We needed a badass horse: a horse that could shoot laser beams out of its eyes. A horse that could stab you with its head…
A unicorn.
And what would be even better than a Killer Unicorn? Obviously, if it was also a baby…
The rest of the process involved spending a lot of time collecting unicorn pictures, unicorn memes, unicorn songs, Youtube shows, MLP stuff. (Check out my Pinterst board for a view into my mind circa May 2016 https://www.pinterest.com/angiedvm/maze-ideas-2016/ )
This is the time of year when we (Angie and Alan) team up to design and cut the corn maze. We don’t know what it will be yet, but stay tuned…
Maze plan with grid and cutting aids (circles and golden spiral templates) overlaid
So, contrary to popular belief, the corn maze does not simply appear in our cornfield one day…it would be awesome to wake up one morning and find a giant squid visible from the tower, but alas, we need to rely on forced labor (OK, not really forced…) in the hot sun to get the design in the field.
Here’s how we do it:
1) Finalize the design. This can involve heated discussions between the designer (Angie) and the farmer (Alan) but eventually we come up with the plan.
3) Stake the cornfield. This allows the workers to figure out where they are and relate that to the plan, which is printed out on a grid. We don’t use GPS, as our design is so complex it would be difficult to get the accuracy we need.
4) Transfer the design from the grid on the page to the grid in the field, using paint and flags to mark the trails.
5) Mow the trails as a preliminary step–corn that has been mowed off at this stage will still grow back, so if a mistake has been made, it will hopefully be caught before the next step…
6) Till out the trails. This removes the corn plants, and so the tilled trails are “permanent”–they had better be in the right spot! (although Alan has been known to take “artistic liberties” with the design on several occasions.)
Sometimes the reaction to the design is “Are you kidding me? You want me to cut that!?”
Sections can be enlarged to help get the details right–trails must be laid out accurately to 6 inches.
For perfect circles, we find the center point, measure the radius, and paint the circle. This year’s maze has a LOT of circles…which is good (check out all of those circles on the tentacles!)
Once a trail is marked with paint or flags (and double-checked against the plan), we mow the corn short.
The crew leader consults with everyone who is marking and checks over the layout. It takes about a week to get the design in the field.
Tilling is the last step–it’s the equivalent of drawing in pen, because it removes the corn permanently.
The dogs don’t actually help, but they’re cute.
Finally! The design for 2013 is finished, and the crew is working on getting it cut into the field!
The inspiration for this year’s maze started with thinking about octopi, which are one of my favorite animals.
I collected a lot of images of octopi, but I realized that an octopus wasn’t quite exciting enough on its own…but a giant squid, or better yet, a Kraken, is definitely maze-worthy.
Once I settled on the squid, I found some old maps that had sea monsters and often really ornate compass roses, which worked well.
I tried to fit in some other images, like the face of the wind blowing and the ship sailing over the edge of the world, but they didn’t work within the size of the field.
The maze is DONE! (Actually it was done a little while ago, but now we have a photo to prove it.) Alan and the crew got the design cut into the field right before we had to leave for Montana…and then we thought we’d be returning to beautiful, six+ feet tall corn. Instead, we returned home to mournful, very thirsty corn that was about knee high and had pretty much stopped growing. Hmm, it’s not that great a maze when you can see all the trails. So, we did our rain dances, hung clothes on the line, left the laptop “accidentally” open on the patio table, all the things that in the past have guaranteed rain. No luck. We got a backyard swimming pool, thinking that would trigger a cold, rainy summer. Nope. We finally pulled out the only trick we could think of–we purchased irrigation equipment.
That worked–before we had pipe set up to irrigate the maze, we got a few storms and the corn perked right up. It’s been growing at that insanely fast rate that corn can do with adequate moisture and hot weather, so it’s going to be plenty tall for the season. Yay!
The video shows the final design, and here’s the preliminary photo below. Alan and I have to go over the photo, see where he made any errors–sorry, “took artistic liberties with my design”–and then we either go back into the maze and make changes, or, more likely, change the map to reflect the real maze. And there’s always Photoshop…
Our first photo of the 2012 corn maze–we’ll get a better photo once we correct any errors that we find using this one.
Visit us at the Treinen Farm Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch!
W12420 WI Trunk 60
Lodi, WI 53555
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