When you take the time to walk through the corn maze at South 47 Farm in Redmond, it’s almost unfathomable that one person is responsible for turning five and half acres of dirt and corn stalks into a work of art.

But for farm manager Roger Calhoon, it’s a labor of love.

“This will be our ninth year,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot faster, but it still takes a couple of weeks. It’s hard to put in a full day’s work, it’s pretty strenuous.”

Armed with nothing more than a map of his maze on a clipboard, a hoe, and his mower, Calhoon sets out to finish the day’s cutting, keeping the maze on pace to open on September 9.

On Wednesday, Calhoon mowed down rows of eight-foot stalks to shape the bottom of a rooster’s wing in the west corner of the maze.

“This year, the theme is going to be ‘Farming Dawn to Dusk,'” Calhoon explained. “So we have a rooster crowing in the morning, that’s the big picture, and there’s a barn with the sunrise coming up behind it.”

While the theme and general sketch of the maze isn’t that hard to conceptualize, actually putting it to work in the field is a whole other story.

Every year before any work is started, Calhoon and his assistants place small orange flags exactly 10 feet apart through the entire length and width of the maze.

Then, Calhoon superimposes his maze design onto a sheet of graph paper, each square representing a 10-foot by 10-foot block.

“I first come up with a basic graphic idea … and then work it and tune it until I think I have a good maze,” Calhoon explained. “With the flags every 10 feet, the whole field becomes the equivalent of a big sheet of graph paper, and then I go dot-to dot, basically.”

Calhoon also includes an educational aspect to his design, placing cards at periodic forks in the maze with trivia questions about farming. Choosing the correct answer will lead the guest further into the maze, while the wrong response will lead to a dead-end with another card explaining the answer.

He said he thoroughly enjoys the challenge of making a maze that will satisfy all guests, from kids to adults, making it not too hard, but difficult enough that a celebration is warranted upon finding the maze’s elusive exit.

“Near the exit I put a little sign that says, ‘You did it!’ and almost every kid that comes out shouts, ‘We did it!’ They have a good time.”

South 47 Farm is located at 15410 NE 124th St.

Maze admission will be $6 per person on weekdays and $7 per person on weekends, and the maze will be open whenever the farm is, from Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. beginning Sept. 9, with a grand opening celebration Sept. 12-13 from 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. Starting in October, the maze will be open until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday for “flashlight maze nights.”