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  • From: Aozotorp AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Maze helps farmer lose his money woes
  • Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 15:25:22 EDT


http://www.denverpost.com/news/booth0912.htm


Maze helps farmer lose his money woes


By Michael Booth
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sept. 12, 2000 - The twists and turns cut into the maze in Glen Fritzler's
cornfield are a confounding puzzle to the city dwellers who pay good money to
come out and get lost. But they're nothing compared to the twists and turns
he's negotiated in the past 10 years trying to make a profit from farming.

After bumping into dead end after dead end and feeling the uncontrollable
forces of weather and crop prices force him into wrong turns nearly every
year, Michael Booth Fritzler may finally be in the black again come
Halloween, thanks to the maze and the friendship he formed with its Utah
creator.

"It's been kind of overwhelming," said Fritzler, 43, still sounding slightly
dazed Monday from a weekend of cars unloading customers at his dusty fields
about 40 miles north of Denver. "It's very exciting, but I still have a lot
of disbelief that people would want to come out to my farm and see the maze.
Every night I thank the Lord that I had this opportunity. I still can't
believe it." Fritzler and his family welcome the possible change in fortune
in 2000 after a decade of being pummeled by chance in the 1990s. The
Fritzlers grow carrots, onions and sweet corn on 350 acres near La Salle, off
of U.S. 85. They started farming in 1980, and finally paid off debts to be
independent growers in 1990. Then it hailed. And hailed again. They borrowed
money to make it through the bad years, then watched the bad years pile up
like more hail.

"Whenever we had a (good) price, we didn't have a crop to sell, and when we
had a crop to sell, we didn't have a price," Fritzler said. "Only two in the
past 10 years have been in the black." A couple of years ago, amid all the
trouble, his cousin George called to rave about a cornfield maze he had
visited in Arizona, and suggested Glen try it as a way to bring in cash.

Fritzler wasn't interested, didn't know what mazes were or why anyone would
drive from Denver to get stuck in one. "But then you see the bottom line, a
negative at the end of the year, you start thinking maybe we need to do
something different," Fritzler said. "And then in the next six months we knew
the next year wasn't going to be any better." That's when he gave Brett
Herbst a call. Herbst had done the Arizona maze, and as Fritzler and others
soon came to find out, Herbst is the king of confusing corn. His company has
helped construct 61 mazes this fall alone, across the United States and
Canada, each of them wildly inventive designs in head-high corn that can take
hours to get through.

Fritzler settled on a Bronco-style horse head right away, then fudged the
pattern a little to satisfy legal concerns raised by the football team. This
spring, he planted grain corn in one field instead of his usual sweet
variety, because it grows taller and can still be harvested after the
Halloween closing of the maze.

Four weeks into the corn's growth, Fritzler and Herbst headed into the field
with a secret tool chest of measuring lines, marking flags, a
computer-generated grid, and some machinery available on most crop farms.
It's a lot of row-counting, a lot of walking, and a lot of measuring-twice,
cut-once, Fritzler said. "You don't have the opportunity do undo any
mistakes. It's very unforgiving." After viewing the first cut from above,
they touched up a few O's in the "Giddy Up Colorado" slogan.

He signed a contract with Herbst, paying a fee for the design and cutting
help, and splitting a percentage of the gate, which is $6 for adults, less
for kids.

Then he wondered if anybody would show up, only to feel "amazed" -- "we hear
ourselves using that word a lot," Fritzler said, remarking on the school
buses that unload and the cars that line up on County Road 33. His wife, Kim,
sells tickets, and his children, Amanda, 10, and Trevor, 8, sell T-shirts or,
when they're not in school, help the perplexed through the maze. With crop
prices at excruciating lows this year, Fritzler is thankful to find a new
source of income, and hopes other farmers are not jealous that he may have
found a way out of the boom-bust cycle.

Herbst, who grew up on an Idaho ranch and studied agriculture in college,
said he is happy his chosen trade is helping a few people toiling in the
toughest of lifestyles. "It's in my blood," Herbst said. "That just makes it
more rewarding for me." Farming in cursive doesn't bring a break from the
long hours of straight-row farming. With his maze open until 10 p.m. Fridays
and Saturdays, Fritzler often doesn't stumble back into the house until 1
a.m., then has to get up early to keep the working farm in shape.

"The kids don't see dad near as much as they used to," Fritzler sighed. But,
he added, "It looks to be a good decision. I would have to guess it's going
to be a profitable venture for us, and something we'll continue doing." Call
970-737-2129 for information on Fritzler's maze.



  • Maze helps farmer lose his money woes, Aozotorp, 09/12/2000

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