SUNDERLAND — This year’s Mike’s Maze design at Warner Farm reflects on 25 years of corn-y creations.
The design reads “25 amazing years” with the “y” stretching into an ear of corn. At the 25 stations in the maze, visitors can read riddles or take a break from the puzzles to play games from past years.
One station features a musical chime game from the farm’s Louis Armstrong theme in 2007. To play, visitors walk along pipes of different sizes and tones and name the tune. At another station celebrating the 2010 Andy Warhol theme, maze-goers use a printing press and guess the print’s artist.
“We have been doing this for 25 years, and it felt only appropriate to go back and revisit some of the ideas we’ve done in the past and highlight them,” said David Wissemann, who runs Warner Farm with his father Mike Wissemann.
With games, short summaries of past mazes with fun facts, each stop spotlights a different year of the farm’s tradition. Each riddle also reveals a letter, and visitors can collect letters “to then unscramble the secret meaning to why we do this every year, year after year, or why Mike started doing it all those years ago,” explained Wissemann.
“We aren’t a traditional maze where there’s one way in and one way out,” Wissemann said. “It’s more of a walk through a cornfield with activities.”
Wissemann said the unconventional maze may disappoint a few visitors looking for a traditional puzzle with one right path, but added that the design delivers on a corn maze’s promise. With a laugh he insisted, “It doesn’t mean you can’t get lost if you don’t want to.”
Before opening on Sept. 5, the maze started on David Wissemann’s wife’s computer in June. An artist and designer, Jess Marsh Wissemann creates the design digitally and sends it to Rob Stouffer at Precision Mazes. Stouffer then uses geo-referencing technology to map out the maze plan. A few weeks later in July, he travels from Lee’s Summit, Missouri, to Sunderland. With GPS technology and a track loader, Stouffer cuts the corn field into a maze in just one day.
Stouffer said he has cut over 1,000 corn mazes since starting in 2001. Of his many corn clients across the country, Stouffer said Mike’s Maze is one of the few that draws their own designs, instead of Stouffer’s team.
“They’re super creative and innovative,” Stouffer said. “They understand how to adjust the design so that we can show off their work the best.”
He added that he looks forward to collaborating and sharing a few laughs with David, Jess and Mike Wissemann every year.
“There’s just a sweet friendship and cooperation and appreciation for each other’s skills that we can bring to the table with each project,” Stouffer explained.
For the first 13 years of Mike’s Maze, David Wissemann said a family friend cut the maze by hand, a long process that once stretched to about a month when he cut a field-wide word search.
Over August, David Wissemann and his wife plan the games and layout, and he writes the riddles.
“It’s very much a collaborative, creative process between the two of us,” David Wissemann said. “We work a lot, but we really enjoy it too.”
Beyond the maze, kids can choose from Warner Farm’s other activities like potato cannons, a bounce pad, a human hamster wheel, pedal carts, wagon rides, a petting zoo and a playground with a 40-foot tube slide.
With so many activities, David Wissemann said families often return to the farm for multiple days, which lead to the creation of season passes.
“We’d have plenty of parents who would come and just want to let their kids run free and have a good old time,” Wissemann said.
Since the maze opened on Sept. 5, David Wissemann said he has noticed a similar “great” turnout, with past maze-goers recognizing the previous themes and newcomers venturing into the corn for the first time.
“People seem to be having a great time, and that’s always how we gauge it,” he said. “We just want to make sure people are enjoying the maze that we’ve made, and not to mention all of the other activities.”
The maze is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and Indigenous Peoples’ Day until Nov. 2.
Season passes cost $40 for adults, and $30 for kids. General admission is $16 for adults and $14 for kids, students, seniors and active military on Saturday and Sunday. On Fridays, maze tickets drop to $12 for adults and $10 for kids, students, seniors and active military. All children under 4 years old can visit for free.