Pitt Meadows corn maze proves ear-resistible

Latest Pitt Meadows puzzle features theme celebrating 100 years of the PNE

After 11 years, the Hopcott family has the art of corn-maze making down to a science. The process is so precise, in fact, that it now only takes eight hours to groom their 17-acre plot in Pitt Meadows into a modern-day labyrinth of stalks and leaves, attracting adventure-seekers from all over the Lower Mainland.

Just don't expect maze manager Brad Hopcott to know how many stalks that equals.

"Too many to count," says Hopcott on a sweltering day this week.

To get things just perfect, the Hopcotts enlist the services of an American who specializes in carving out these giant puzzles based on client sketches, using GPS, a roto tiller and a tractor.

The result is two different mazes every year, with average solution times ranging from an hour to two hours per maze.

Note the word "average."

Hopcott's brother, Travis, remembers a woman who must have set the unofficial slowest time ever to complete the challenge.

"It took her over four hours."

In addition to the mazes, wee ones can cozy up to the petting zoo while for those young at heart wanting to throw an office gig at the maze, there are "cornporate" rooms that come with barbecue pits.

Personally, I want to take on the maze at night, armed with glowsticks and flashlights, which is totally an option, too. The glowsticks aside, that's not corny at all.

Check out meadowsmaze.com for more.

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/Pitt+Meadows+corn+maze+proves+resistible/3416930/story.html#ixzz0x9XGO3rs

Maze Cartoon of the Afghanistan hand-off between Petraeus and McCrystal by Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon of the Afghanistan hand-off between Petraeus and McCrystal.

Cartoon maze sports analogy of an NFL football handoff between Petraeus and McCrystal as generals for the war in Afghanistan. Created by Yonatan Frimer
Click here for a printable, hi-res version of this maze
Click here for the maze solution
Visit Team of Monkeys . com for more maze cartoons by Yonatan Frimer

News on this cartoon's topic

Gen McChrystal removed

WASHINGTON - US PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday removed his top US commander in Afghanistan following a public flap over the general's controversial remarks to a magazine.

The unceremonious exit of General Stanley McChrystal injected greater uncertainty into the troubled war effort, taking place just as the United States was about to launch a major offensive in and around the key southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the stronghold of the Taleban.

Gen McChrystal, who derided the Obama administration and its handling of the war in Afghanistan in a lengthy profile in the Rolling Stone magazine, was summoned to the White House yesterday to explain his remarks.

After a 30-minute face-to-face meeting, Mr Obama said he accepted the resignation of the petulant general and relieved him of his command of US forces in Afghanistan. 'It was a difficult decision, it saddens me to lose a soldier who I've come to respect and admire,' said Mr Obama, noting that the decision was not prompted by the 'personal insult'.

'But war is bigger than any one man or woman. Difficult as this is, it is the right decision for our national security.'

(Click here to read the full article)