Linda Radtke
RANDOLPH CENTER — On Boudro Road, a wall of tall corn is drawing families, neighbors, and visitors to a new kind of farm experience. Across from the Silloway Maple sugarhouse, a five-acre corn maze is now open, the result of a partnership between two neighboring central Vermont farm families.
Farmers David and Morgan Savage, whose farm is down the road, planned and planted the maze.
“We’ve been here six years and wanted to be more involved in the community,” Morgan Savage says.
For the Savages, the maze is an example of diversification — the kind of creative thinking that can help small family farms remain viable. It is also part of the growing field of agritourism, offering locals and visitors, especially families, a chance to spend time outdoors and experience the countryside in a different way.
For the Lambert family at Silloway Maple, welcoming people to the farm is already a long-standing tradition. Bette Lambert’s family bought the farm in 1943. More than 80 years later, six children in the family, along with relatives and many people from the neighborhood, remain involved in maple sugaring.
Bette Lambert’s son Paul manages the woods, with a sugarbush of about 27,000 maple trees. During sugaring season, the family uses about 50 cords of firewood for boiling. By the end of the run, they typically will have produced about 1,500 gallons of syrup.
Bette’s brother Dave, at 81, still does farm work. Marilyn supervises the boiling and gives tours. The family especially enjoys hosting schoolchildren during sugaring season, giving them an opportunity to see firsthand how maple syrup is made.
The operation combines old and new. Silloway Maple continues to use traditional sugaring methods and renewable resources, including wood from its own woods for the evaporator. Solar panels at the sugarhouse also provide renewable energy.
Bette has also spent years telling the story of farm life. In the 1980s she penned a column “The Farm Wife’s Journal” for the Herald of Randolph, then self-published those into a book about her daily life at work on the farm. She continues to write a blog for the Silloway Maple website.
The corn maze adds another chapter to that story.
“The partnership worked perfectly,” Lambert says from her porch, watching children playing on the farm’s expansive playground in front of the wall of corn stalks.
The setting seems to encourage visitors to slow down.
“We have wide paths and people enjoy being removed from the busyness of life,” Lambert says. “There’s no hurry here.”
The maze has also become an opportunity for the wider community to get involved. Last year, honor society students from nearby Randolph Union High School created a “Haunted Maze,” opening the cornfield after dark and giving visitors an entirely different experience.
Lambert can already imagine other possibilities.
“Maybe we could have a contest for the fastest completion of the maze,” she muses.
The families are using social media to spread the word about the maze and the farm, attracting both locals and people from farther away. The response can be substantial.
“Sometimes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons we see 200 or so cars at our place,” Lambert says.
And visitors have a friendly welcome waiting for them. Millie, the family’s Icelandic sheepdog, serves as the farm’s canine greeter.
The activity is part of a larger change taking place on many small farms, where agritourism offers another way to make a living from the land while giving the public a chance to connect with agriculture. At Silloway Maple, that connection comes naturally. The farm has long been a place where children can learn, families can gather, and visitors can see the work behind the products they take home.
The corn maze adds a new reason to stop.
It also seems fitting that the project is a partnership between neighboring families. Vermont farms have always depended on family, neighbors, and community, and the maze is one more example of that spirit — traditional farming continuing to evolve without losing its sense of place.
For Bette Lambert, watching children play in front of the cornfield, the appeal seems wonderfully simple.
People come to walk through the maze, enjoy the playground, stop for a creemee, visit the store, or simply spend an afternoon on the farm.
And, as Lambert says, there’s no hurry.
The Corn Maze at Silloway Maple, along with the creemee stand and store, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $10 for adults; special prices for families and school groups. For more information, see sillowaymaple.com.
