Why do cows wear bells? Because they don’t have horns, of course.

If this corny joke is your sort of humor, or even if it is not, you can get lost... in the Castle Hill Farm corn maze, that is.

Castle Hill Farm’s corn maze is open for yet another season — it has been 30-plus years and counting — and this year’s theme is corny jokes. The cow bell bit is just one example of 30 that are posted on signs throughout the maze on the farm’s 1 Sugar Lane property, owned by the Paproski family.

In past years, the maze has been, among other things, a stork and baby, and wedding ring — each of those in honor of family member Stephanie’s wedding and her first baby, Charlotte. Once it was a spiderweb, another commemorated the summer Olympics, and one year it was for the Avielle Foundation.

“It depends what’s going on that year,” said Diana Paproski, of choosing the design. She runs the farm along with her husband, Steve, and their children Shannon, Stephanie Kearns, and her husband, Dan.

The corny joke theme came about because the Paproskis believe people are getting too high-strung, Diana said. “We thought the community needed to laugh a little bit,” she added.

The other corn field is planted in May, but the special maze corn field is planted around July 22 each year, according to Diana, because the Paproskis do not want the stalks to be full-grown for the fall maze season. That opens the door to a windy October or wild animals seeking snacks taking out the maze.

It is not as simple as just planting rows of corn and cutting a pattern. Well, actually it is. Although it can potentially not be so easy.

The Paproski family, including Charlotte and her younger sibling, Caroline, sits down and brainstorms to pick the theme, then creates a design and cuts it. A GPS is not used, nor is a drone, Stephanie said. A push mower or tractor are used to cut the stalks.

While most corn rows are planted with rows going in the same direction, the maze corn field features horizontal and vertical rows. “We do that because it makes it thicker. You can’t see through the walkway,” Diana explained. “We double the amount of corn that you would see on a field that size.”

That begs the questions, just how big is the maze? And how many corn stalks are there?

The field is seven and a half acres and there are a lot of stalks. Hundreds? Thousands? Try hundreds of thousands. The Paproskis said there are 400,000 stalks in there.

When the stalks reach about two feet tall, a pattern is mowed. After the initial cut, it is mowed intermittently another four or five times. This year, it took a handful of hours each time it was cut, totaling about 25 extra hours of mowing.

It takes about an hour to hour and a half to get through the maze with clues and facts — plus those corny jokes — on signs throughout the maze.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Stephanie said of the process of getting the maze made, adding that it is satisfying to see the pleasure people get out of being in the maze.

For an amazing experience (corny reference intended) the corny joke maze is open on Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 am to 5 pm, as well as on Columbus Day, October 14 (same hours). Weekdays, the maze is open for school and other large groups by appointment, something Diana said she especially enjoys, given that she recently retired after 35 years of teaching.

Cost to enter the maze is $10 (it is free for children 3 and under as well as those with a military ID). The maze will stay open until the first week of November.