NOXEN TWP. — Just because the corn is harvested does not mean the fun is over.
Whistle Pig Pumpkin Farms in Noxen Township rolled out its 11th-year intricate corn maze designs meant to get guests turned around and temporarily lost.
Corn mazes, pumpkins, free hayrides, a hay fort, string maze, sand and seedboxes provide fall fun at the family-owned farm on Route 29.
The amenities are offered every weekend until the end of October.
Whistle Pig Pumpkin Farms has offered corn mazes since 2004, challenging Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties residents.
“My husband thought it (corn mazes) was a great way to offer family fun on the farm, in addition to picking your own pumpkins,” Stacy Field of Whistle Pig Pumpkin Farm said.
Since their inception, the mazes have become a big hit bringing people back year after year.
This year, new random designs of a tractor, a dragon and a snail were inspired by doodles from Field, her husband, Joel, and son, Zachary, and are guaranteed to challenge guests.
But one consistent design that is reformatted year after year is a concentric circle, Field said.
“I have had people tell me they almost got lost in it,” she said.
Maze designs
The circle design is pre-planned and planted accordingly, she said.
The other designs that fill the nearly four-acre farm are transferred from paper ideas to a physical presence by hand.
The family paces out the maze’s twists and turns by walking through the tall, thick corn stocks and flagging each turn.
“We do not use GPS to map out the mazes,” Field said.
Once the maze is “mapped out” then Joel will “cut it out,” she said.
Maze help
Guests can use a series of strategically placed fun facts trivia boxes to guide them through the mazes, Field said.
This year the family also brought back display boxes that consisted of a question with the answer hidden in the contents of the box.
If the questions to all five display boxes are answered correctly, a small gift will be awarded, she said.
“We did not offer them last year and had a lot of people asking to bring them back this year,” Field said.
But if navigating through mazes carved through nearly seven-foot-high corn stocks does not seem difficult — Field and her family offer Moonlight Maze from 5 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
“Bring your flashlights,” she said.