How to go
What: Tom's Maze
Where: 4677 Germantown-Liberty Road
Germantown (Jefferson Twp.)
Info: 937-866-2777
Hours: Fridays and Saturdays 1 to 10 p.m.; Sundays 1 to 6 p.m.
Other hours; By group (20 or more) reservation
Open through: Oct. 31
Admission: $8 (children 5 and younger free with a paying adult)
JEFFERSON TWP., Montgomery County — For the 13th year, Tom’s Maze, an 8 acre corn maze in Jefferson Twp., has opened for another season.
Marie Eby, owner with her husband, Tom, doesn’t see the 13th year as unlucky. “Not at all,” she said. “I think, in fact, it’s going to be a lucky year.” She predicts this will be a season with good weather and a healthy corn crop.
Last year wasn’t quite so good. “Last year it rained every weekend in October,” she said.
Tom’s Maze is an expansive field of corn that’s been cut into an intricate design. As you walk the path of the maze, you find mailboxes with pieces of a map. Eventually, you’ll solve the puzzle and escape the maze.
“The designs, no matter how intricate he makes them, it’s easy for people to do,” Marie explains. “No one ever gets stuck out there.”
This year’s maze sports a pumpkin, the year 2010 and the words “got pumpkins” all spelled out with corn stalks.
Previous years have found a Liberty Bell, an American flag, a host of slogans, even crop circles.
Besides the maze, Marie grows and sells more than 50 varieties of pumpkins. They also sell squash, ornamental gourds, corn shocks and straw bales. “We have a full line of fall ornamental things that were raised here on our own farm,” Marie said.
Tom’s maze website — www.tomsmaze.com - offers a coupon for a discounted price.
A highpoint for many visitors is Tom’s Punkin’ Chunkin’ Cannon. With compressed air, Tom fires pumpkins beyond sight. Marie, of course, grows them. She selects a variety of seven inch pumpkins to fit the gun’s eight inch barrel.
During open hours, the cannon is fired hourly. At about 9 p.m., Tom fires off a glowing pumpkin.
“It looks like a shooting star,” Marie said.
Marie thinks back almost 15 years when Tom first saw the idea of a corn maze in a farming magazine. He mentioned to his wife that he thought he’d do that someday.
“I told him he was nuts,” Marie said.
“He did it anyway and it’s turned out well. It keeps him out of trouble.”
Contact this columnist at (937) 696-2080 or williamgschmidt@verizon.net.
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