Manchester corn maze incorporates nursery rhyme

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MANCHESTER - Sure, there are the requisite corn and pumpkin crops right now at Dean and Jackie Sherman's farm on Wayne Street.

There also is a large shoe.

'The little kids just love to climb on the shoe and play on it,” Dean Sherman said Friday.

Why a shoe? Each year, he explained, he creates a large corn maze. And each year, he has a different theme. This year's is patterned after the nursery rhyme 'There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.”

Sherman said he does woodworking and built the shoe for a float advertising his farm in this summer's Delaware County Fair parade.

'We always enter a float and the grandchildren come home and ride on it,” Sherman said.

After this year's parade, Sherman installed the shoe in the children's play area at the farm, which also features a large wooden train he built for another float in 2010.

Sherman started growing pumpkins in 1980, when he was working as a postal carrier. He grew up on a dairy farm north of Edgewood, and was interested in starting his own farm.

'I had tried growing Christmas trees but I couldn't get enough time off and most of the trees died,” he said. He then stumbled upon the Novak pumpkin farm in Cedar Rapids.

'I went back after Halloween and got to know them and they kind of mentored me,” Sherman said.

In 2004, two years after retiring from a 32-year career with the postal service, Sherman did his first corn maze, and in 2010 he bought 22 acres of land from neighbor Kurt Mauer. Sherman now has 27 acres, which allows for larger corn mazes and more parking, he said.

Past corn mazes have been themed after Old MacDonald's Farm and Noah's Ark. Sherman said he already is thinking about next year's theme.

'My 7-year-old grandson lives in Waukee and wants to do Jack and the Beanstalk,” Sherman said. 'We've already done preliminary drawings and are going to work together to refine it.

Sherman said he works all winter on the right image for the corn maze and tries to make it exciting for children. He said coming up with the image is the hardest part, because he has to come up with one that isn't copyrighted.

'It's really been an adventure to plan the corn maze,” he said, adding between 1,200 and 2,000 people go through each year, depending on how many school tours go through. 'If the weather is really good, I run a lot better numbers too,” he said, adding 'this has been a pretty good year.”

Sherman opens the corn maze on Labor Day weekend and runs it through Halloween, but said this year if the weather stays nice he might open it next weekend, since Halloween falls on a Friday. It costs $5 to go through the maze, but children 4 and under are free.

Sherman said aside from spending the winters planning the next year's corn maze, he stays serving on the City Council in Manchester and chairing the town's Good to Great initiative.

'There's plenty of meetings to go to,” Sherman said. 'I joke I may have to get a job to get some rest.”

IF YOU GO:

l Sherman's Pumpkin Farm and Corn Maze

l 413 S. Wayne St., Manchester

l Hours: Pumpkins available during daylight hours every day. Corn maze open by appointment through this week, may also be open this weekend.

l Cost: $5 to go through the corn maze; 4 and under are free. Other activities, including weekend hayrides, are free.

l For more information or to schedule an appointment to tour the corn maze: Call (563) 920-2732.