The place to be this past weekend appears to have been the Sparks Family farm.

For a third time the Sparks family put together a hay bale maze on their farm yard and invited everyone out to have a little bit of fun during the Rosetown Harvest Family Festival.

Verna Sparks said originally the Hay Bale Maze was meant as a way for just the family to have some fun.

“It all started a few years ago. We did one for just our own family. We did it for just something to do. But we ended up having so much fun. So, the next year we decided to let’s do another and open it up to the public.”

The Sparks made the decision to not charge to participate in the maze back in 2019. Verna wanted to ensure everyone would be able to enjoy the display. Instead, they opted for a silver collection. So those that showed up would be able to donate what they like.

“Yes, it was a coin offering. So whatever people felt they wanted to donate. I didn’t want to put a price-tag on it. We just wanted people to come out and enjoy it,” Verna added. “It turned out to be a great success. We managed tor raise over $1200 dollars for the splash park.”

Excited by the amount raised, and the fun that they had, the Sparks decided to build another maze in 2020. But we all know what happened to plans in 2020.

“I actually had no intention of doing it again, but my family had such a good time they said ‘You have to do it again,” Verna laughed. “But of course, with COVID we didn’t end up putting a maze together last year. That means though I had almost a year and a half to plan for it.”

The Sparks did not waste any of the extra time provided by the pandemic. They opted for a pirate theme maze, and using scrap lumber, built a pirate ship that maze for 2021 would be build around.

“We physically built the pirate ship. It’s just made out of the scarp lumber we had in the yard. It’s 17 feet wide and 40 feet long. Honestly it turned out fantastic,” Verna cheered.

The home-made Sparks pirate shipThe pirate ship at the end of the hay bale maze truly is impressive.

With a pirate ship in hand, and hay bale maze built, the Sparks now just needed some pirates and mermaids to complete the setup. For this they looked to family and friends.

“We had so many people offer to come and help. Which is great because of the size of the maze. We had extended family come out to help and then a few others we asked to help us out. People that I knew would enjoy the evening and pick up a character and do what needs to be done to entertain the other people.”

In the end the hard work of the Sparks and their friends and extended family was shown great appreciation in the form of a strong turnout.

On Saturday, when the maze was geared towards families, the line up for the Sparks pirate maze was long. But no one in line seemed to care. Kids ran around the yard while the adults stood in line sharing laughs and stories.

The Sparks shared that just over 330 took in the ‘spookier’ maze on Friday night and just over 1100 took in the maze on Saturday. More impressively the Sparks managed to raise just over $8,000.

“This year we decided to donate the funds to the Elrose daycare, the Rosetown daycare, and the Gasper Family Foundation.”