Last night our corn maze was featured on the Tonight Show during Jay Leno’s monologue–check out this video (at 1:20) to see our maze! (Of course, we missed it because it was past our bedtime…)

TREINEN FARM PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES (If you aren’t sure what a Whoopie Pie is, you definitely need to try this recipe)

We would make this all the time in the fall if we had any time to cook…

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3 large egg yolks
• 2 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin , canned or fresh
• 1 tsp vanilla

FILLING:

• 3/4 stick butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg white
• 1 TBS milk

 Simple Instructions (if you need more in-depth how-to, ask your mother or someone who knows how to cook…)

1. Mix the brown sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla and pumpkin together.
2. Mix all the other stuff together separately, then combine with the above.
3. Don’t mix too much or they’ll be tough (who knows why? not me.)
4. Drop by tablespoons onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.
5. FILLING: Mix all the ingredients together, whipping it up until everything stops separating and looks fluffy.
6. When the cookies are cool, put filling in between two so they are like Oreos.
7. Eat all of them, or at least until you feel sick (that’s what I’ve always done…)

We always like to include multiple layers of meaning within our corn maze. We like to have an aesthetically pleasing image that is fairly easily recognizable (this year it’s da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” aka “that guy, you know, the one in the circle with this arms out like this <insert realistic demo of arms outstretched here>, yeah, that guy”. However, our da Vinci guy is a cyborg–note the ray gun hand and the mechanical wing, not to mention the assorted gears for joints and a clockwork heart.

Cyborg guy is shown not in a circle/square deal like da Vinci’s, but in the planar projection of a hypercube (aka a “tesseract”, aka “what are you talking about?”) So, a hypercube is like this: you know what a square is, right? Okay, now a cube is just a three-dimensional square. Still with me? A hypercube is simply a four-dimensional cube. ( Here’s a little more technical explanation.) Very cool.

The gears are a nod to mechanical technology, especially the steam-era –aka Steampunk, which is also cool. We’ve got a little circuit-boardy stuff filling in the spaces on the lower right and mid-left.

The knot-like thing in the lower left is, well, a knot, because knots are mathematically interesting. It’s made out of a carbon nanotube, which leads us into the fascinating world of nanotechnology.

The theme this year is technology, ranging from the awesomeness of da Vinci to the steam-era, all the way to modern math and tech. Specifically the “GRIN” technologies: genetics (umm, because the cyborg is also genetically-modified–yeah, that’s it…); robotics (again, cyborg guy sort of counts); information tech (circuit boards); and nanotech, as previously noted (plus the weaponized nanoswarms employed in patrolling the maze for people cutting through the corn…)

More info and links to come on all of these elements.

Rex and I headed out to check on the maze–just wanted to see if 1) the corn was tall enough (yes);

2) Alan’s work cutting it was up to its usual standards (yes);

3) If I would get lost (yes). All very good signs!

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.

The pressure is on..yesterday Alan pointed out that you can “row” the corn already. Since I’ve been married to a farmer for a number of years, I know what that means: the plants are up enough that when you are driving by you can see the rows. Good thing I’ve been working on the design–did I mention that I’m not done, though? It usually takes me about a week to get the design ready to give to Alan, and I’m probably halfway there.

Here’s the next step in maze design–collecting ideas and images and taping them to my closet door next to my desk. I use these as inspiration for the preliminary sketches, and to see which elements will work visually. I’m also looking at ideas for incorporating math and science for our field trips. It’s easy to spend too much time on this phase because it’s so fun…

Okay, so far the maze will be incorporating GRIN technologies (Genetics, Robotics, Information Technology, Nanotechnology); a cyborg, a carbon nanotubes, some da Vinci images, including the Vitruvian Man and a perpetual motion machine. And steampunk…lots of steampunk.

Next step: start the actual design (this year I’m using iDraw on my mac.)

I thought I’d make some videos along the way as long as I’m doing the maze design–we get a lot of questions about the process, and it really is fun to do. Plus, this helps with my procrastination… However, the clock is ticking because the corn has been planted.

Here is our 2011 Icarus Maze in its final form:

But it didn’t start out anything like this–here’s a preliminary drafts, as I played around with concepts:

I love the early stages of maze design, where I spend lots of time surfing the internet for ideas and following rabbit trails of possible concepts. For 2012, so far my design ideas are the following: Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man as a cyborg, the planar projection of a hypercube, DNA, carbon nanotubes, steampunk-esque machinery and aesthetic, robots… It will be interesting to see what coalesces out of the creative ether–but the clock is ticking, since Alan is planting the maze TODAY.