An Ama(i)zing Maize Maze

Fall weather has finally arrived in Virginia, so today Anna and I officially welcomed the season by performing our usual pumpkin-getting ritual. The centerpiece of the ritual is, of course, driving to a nearby pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins to be carved (we usually get one Ernie -- round -- and one Bert -- elongated). But there are two other essential elements: first, we stop by Starbucks to get pumpkin-spice lattes and usually some pumpkin-themed pastry, and second, we pull out the iPod while winding through the rural roads and put on Bebo Norman's song "Selwood Farm". We like most of Bebo's songs, but this one is particularly appropriate because it's about the harvest season, with crackling fires and chilly weather. It always puts us in an autumnal frame of mind.

This year we went to College Run Farms, which is, literally, over the river (there's a free 15-minute auto ferry across the James) and through the woods. After picking out our pumpkins, we walked past a corn maze and I decided it would be a good opportunity for a picture. Seeing it reminded me of an interesting fact that we just learned from reading Bill Bryson's new book, At Home: the English word 'corn' actually used to mean (and still does, apparently, in Britain) any grain. Corn as we know it in America is actually a specific type of corn (in the broader sense), namely maize. Too bad we don't still call it that, because a Maize Maze sounds much cooler than a Corn Maze. Though, then again, perhaps that's why someone thought of making a maze through a cornfield in the first place.