The family farm has come to a fork in the road. Some farmers find the lure
of a fat paycheck from one of the behemoth agribusiness corporations irresistible.
Others opt to get out of farming entirely. But fortunately for the rest of us,
a few choose to try the old Judy Garland/Andy Rooney answer to all of life’s
big problems–let’s put on a show.
And oh what a show a family farm can make, especially at harvest time. There are pumpkins to pick and apples to gather and corn so tall you can disappear among the rows. Some area farmers have fun with their corn crops by turning them into a maze of maize and selling city folk tickets to get lost in it.
At Apple Basket Farms in nearby Barry (about an hour west of Springfield on I-72), farmer Jack Cruttenden has fashioned corn mazes depicting a different farm theme every year since 1996. His designs have included a pig, a cat, a rooster, and a spider. Several had apple-related themes.
“This year, in an effort to make it harder than usual, he just spelled out the word Apple Basket,” says his wife, Karen Cruttenden, who runs Farmer Jack’s Amaizing Maze with her husband.
At Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch near Rantoul (about 100 miles northeast of Springfield), some 7,000 people went through the Cornfusion Corn Maze last autumn. Like Cruttenden, farmer Mark Hardy comes up with a new theme every year. He has created labyrinths honoring cowboys, hot air balloons, the State of Alaska, and the Wizard of Oz. Last year, his theme was the Chicago Bears. This year, it is “Cruise Illinois”–a design that depicts a 1959 Cadillac cruising into the sunset on Route 66.
“I just come up with things I can build props for and things that sound like fun,” Hardy says.
Hardy’s maze features several “checkpoints” visitors can search for inside the maze. At Cruttenden’s, instead of checkpoints, visitors search for “jewels” such as sweet gum balls and acorns.
Both farmers are self-taught in the subject of crafting corn mazes. “I even get a little protective of things that it cost me a lot of money to develop or learn,” says Hardy. “I’ve made some very expensive mistakes.”
Hardy made his first corn maze–a hot air balloon–using only string line and his imagination. When he went up in an airplane to see his maze, he was happy with what he saw. “I draw a picture, and it looks just like it,” he says.
These days, he hires a GPS technician to transform his vision into reality. His design is fed into a computer, then plotted with little flags around the six-acre field. He plants a variety of seed corn known for its height and heartiness. When the seedlings are a few inches tall, he cuts off the ones he doesn’t want with a weed eater–a process that can last several days.
Cruttenden, on the other hand, uses no fancy satellite equipment when he makes his mazes. He simply draws a design on paper, counts the rows that need to be trimmed for the design, and mows them down with a large John Deere riding mower.
“One thing I’ve discovered,” his wife Karen says, “is that city people want to come to the farm, but they want it manicured like a golf course. They don’t want to get messy, but they want to come to the country.”
Another lesson she learned is that most families who come to the farm want a stroll, not a marathon, when they enter the corn maze.
“When the TV show Survivor was popular, we had a 10-acre ‘Survivor’ maze,” she recalls. “But the 4-acre maze is what most families want.”
Both farms feature other attractions besides the mazes. Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch is actually a Christmas tree farm with about 5,000 firs, pines, and spruces. This time of year, the Hardys sell pumpkins, placing one at the base of each tree. Their ranch also offers hayrides, cook-outs, a pedal-cart racetrack, a gift shop, a banquet facility with live entertainment, and, appropriately, a herd of 19 reindeer. The Hardys went to Alaska to select the reindeer, and named some of them after Alaska landmarks like Alyeska and Togiak. The rest have names Mark Hardy calls nontraditional–Mistletoe, Blizzard, Flurry, Joy, Dadgummit, and Arose a Clatter. A calf born on their ranch is called Hallelujah.
“They are very nice animals, with a temperament a lot like a cow,” Mark Hardy says. “Klondike has a six- to seven-foot rack, and he’ll come up to the gift shop, stick his head in the window and eat graham crackers, cookies, and muffins all day long.”
At Apple Basket Farms, the Cruttendens have a pick-your-own pumpkin patch, petting zoo, pony rides, horse-drawn carriage rides, cookouts, bonfires, a straw castle called King Floyd’s (after the maintenance man), and “Bunnyville,” a minature village populated by rabbits. They offer educational tours of their apple orchard and their packing, grading, and cider-making operations. They also have a café, banquet hall, a gift shop, and a store selling approximately 45 varieties of apples. Their farm has been featured in Midwest Living magazine, and it was named “most beautiful farm” in Pike County in 1999.
The decision to open their farms to the public–turning themselves into tourist attractions–has forced both families to acquire new skills. Both the Hardys and the Cruttendens have mastered the art of marketing, and are becoming more computer literate by the day. They’ve adjusted their farm calendars to include trips to major cities to browse markets for knickknacks to supplement their gift shops.
“I don’t know what is wrong with me!” Hardy says, reflecting on how far this is from “real” farming. “My wife chooses most of it, and I just approve it. I think I just go along to slow her down a bit.”
But these doo-dads and petting zoos are the future of family farming.
“You have to re-invent yourself,” Karen Cruttenden says. “This is how we’ve
stayed on the farm.”
For more information go to www.reindeerranch.com
or www.applebasketfarms.com
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2003.
