MONTAGUE — If the seemingly endless rain has been putting a damper on your mood lately, what better medicine might there be than seemingly endless sunshine?
Our Family Legacy Farm’s new sunflower maze looks to provide just that. In its inaugural year, the maze puts a spin on the conventional corn maze concept to immerse participants in a field of yellow. With sunflowers being a short-term crop, the maze’s few-week duration means that those interested have to act fast before the maze is beyond the horizon.
As a farm that primarily services local stores and town residents from its Montague facility, Our Family Legacy Farm is consistently aiming to serve the community, farm co-owner Natalie Spatcher said. Although the farm specializes in growing asparagus, Spatcher said she thought that a sunflower maze would be a unique way to sow some joy.
“Just generally, I think it brings people happiness just seeing the sunflowers,” Spatcher said. “There really aren’t any sunflower mazes around.”
Spatcher and her husband, co-owner Cliff Spatcher, planted seeds to grow the sunflowers in June. After the field grew thick with yellow petals, they mowed paths to create their maze. As an added touch of character, the farmers added props and a series of hidden emojis with jokes printed below them to serve as a search-and-find objective. By Aug. 14, the maze was open for business, with proceeds from first-day admission going towards a scholarship for Turners Falls High School students.
Sure enough, those who came to lose themselves in the field of gold shared the farm’s enthusiasm.
“I thought it was beautiful,” Kathy Webber, a Turners Falls resident who completed the maze with her two grandchildren, said. “I liked it more than a corn maze because it was prettier.”
Spatcher said that those who attempted the maze have generally thought it was “pretty challenging,” adding that the average time for completion takes “about an hour.” She also said, though, that public reception of the maze has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Overall, people have said they really liked it,” Spatcher said. “A lot of people like the change of scenery.”
Sunday, Sept. 6 will be the maze’s final day of operation for the season. The farmers take solace, however, in the fact that the sunflowers themselves enable the maze to become an annual tradition.
“Once the seeds are ready to harvest, we have a gleaner that’s going to take down the sunflowers to plant seeds for next year,” Spatcher said.
Spatcher is optimistic that next year, the sunflower maze might expand to include two separate fields planted apart from each other help extend the season, in addition to switching up the maze’s theme to keep things interesting. She also said the farm might invite food trucks and local breweries to set up shop on the property.
Until Sept. 6, the Our Family Legacy Farm sunflower maze is open Thursday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children, and free for children under 5 years old.