Lanesboro family shares the joys of fall at Big Springs Farm
Sep. 24—LANESBORO, Minn. — When Justin Brown imagines a new element for his family's corn maze, he smiles with heart eyes at people finding their excited smiley face during fall activities at Big Springs Farm.
On an adventure through their "piece of paradise," as Pam Brown says, the couple loves sharing the joy of fall: an emoji-themed corn maze, apple cider slushies, pumpkins of different colors, sunflowers bursting to the excitement of honeybees and a slide swooshing into the corn. They're also harvesting corn and soybeans with Justin's parents, Keith and Anita Brown, as a family endeavor. Plus there's about 75 head of beef cattle to deal with, too.
"We really want this to be a place where people can come and connect to a farm," Justin said. "We would like people to walk away ... saying like, 'This is our farm.' That they've come here many times and they know our place and they maybe even know us."
With dust from the corn pit dried on his shoe, 10-year-old Jeron Brown leads the way through the corn maze and explains how people can discover the maze's checkpoints. People meander on a freshly tilled path with the top-used emojis, including a winking face, thumbs-up, heart, laughing face and poop. Justin says his use of emojis remains mostly with the thumbs-up, and Pam says her favorite is the laughing face. Though, as a corn maze and pumpkin patch business owner Pam notes there could be more pumpkin emojis.
"We just thought emojis are kind of a fun thing and it's kind of crossing over the modern aspect of technology with that with the farm," Pam said of their third corn maze planted on 10 acres. "It's also opened up a lot of conversations about how we plant our maze because for us we actually use GPS from our planter to plant the maze and it helps people realize that there's so much technology being used in agriculture."
As an operating farm since the 1870s, Pam says the tillage tractor on display and hay wagon are pieces used on the farm, though not antiques. It's a way to expose people to modern agriculture and a farm experience, she says.
From year to year, people climb the tractor feeling like a kid again. They search for the best pumpkins, jump in the smooth kernels of the corn pit and glide beside the corn on the zipline. Pam notes the activities encourage people to step away from technology and "have fun together." They "(provide) a really fun fall experience and atmosphere for families to come," Justin says.
With their first year of sunflowers, the Instagram-worthy acre of blooms "really help give that immersive experience," Pam says. The sunflowers are available through September, and cut flowers are available until the first freeze. The farm is open on weekends through Oct. 29.
Next to Grandma Anita's shed of arts and crafts, Jeron reads an "unexpected" item off the list of people's favorite activities: climbing the hay bales. A series of heart-shaped papers on the admission shed, which will be covered by the end of the season, show people's enjoyment of the farm.
"We're trying to build community, too, and you can look and say, 'I wonder if Elena is my friend from school?' It's kind of fun to look through that because a lot of people they just take the time to look," Pam said.
While working the ticket sales and taking care of the tiny dinosaurs, or chickens, Jeron also learns math and science. As agriculture majors at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Justin and Pam turned a corner on their life journey to discover agritourism in Switzerland, like the green grass and cattle grazing on the hillside sponsored through the government and local farmers. They decided to fill their own niche market in Southeast Minnesota in 2021 after
Byron's Tom and Colleen Tweite retired
and a Lewiston corn maze was not operational for a few years.
"We didn't realize how much fun it is helping other people have fun. It sounds cheesy but it's truly how we feel, it's so rewarding," Pam said.
The goal: fun, unique fall activities on the farm that draw families together, with activities made for young families, children 10 and up, and adults. There's an open-slotted structure filled with pumpkins and a mini corn maze built as a natural playground. The emoji maze is split in easier and harder halves.
"We come up with a general maze design idea and then we hire a company to design the maze. ... They design the maze professionally and then send it to us in ... a planter file and so we're just able to upload that in our planter," Justin said. "It's not perfect, I do have to go clean it up but you definitely know where the lines are supposed to be."
The Browns hope to expand their concession stand to a commercial kitchen in a permanent structure in the future. They also want to add educational programs. The farm experience offers space for questions, too, such as how long does it take to plant the maze? (Three to four hours.) And just why do you let the corn die?
"We want them to ask questions about what they see," Pam said. "For us, the corn needs to die and dry down to harvest it but a lot of people don't realize that the corn you see driving through the countryside isn't sweet corn. It's being marketed as dry corn for ethanol or other things depending on where it's going."
Jeron, who says he and his two siblings Allison and Jameson are the seventh (or maybe eighth if they count land's first owner Halver Olson as family) on the land, already dreams of operating the corn maze one day.
"It's the best job ever just to design (and) have your mission be ... operation fun ... and make people happy," Justin and Pam Brown said. "It's the most rewarding job that I've ever had, by far. Being a farmer, I guess, is pretty rewarding, too, but this ... you get to feel it all the time."
When: Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in September; Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 29
Where: 32060 Furrow Road, Lanesboro
How much: $12 at the farm and online
More info:
