Growing a family tradition

Besides the petting zoo and the ever-growing corn maze, the festival has a bouncy house on hand and offers a variety of pumpkin games and activities: pumpkin tic-tac-toe, pumpkin checkers, pumpkin bowling and pumpkin painting. Besides the free pumpkin that guests receive, they can also purchase an extra pumpkin to paint or else paint a wooden pumpkin for free.

There’s also the chance to play gravity box basketball.

“Once you shoot the ball in, it runs out [from the chute] to the tray,” Maus said.

With all the activities, guests get hungry and thirsty, so there are concessions for purchase.

“We have kettle corn, chips, home-made caramel apples, cotton candy, apple cider, hot chocolate, coffee, Gatorade, pop and water,” Maus said.

Two years ago, when Maus fi rst mentioned his idea of planting lots of pumpkins and hosting a family festival, his father, Steve, and stepmother, Bethany, were supportive. His mother, Rachael Mauer, was on board as well.

“None of them said no or shot down the idea,” Maus said.

The Maus family thrives on a can-do attitude. In fact, Maus’s parents as well as his siblings, Tosh, Emmett and Jax Mauer, all help with the festival.

“It’s a family effort,” Maus said. “Everybody pitches in.”

His dad has caught the festival bug and often comes up with new ideas for games or ways to make the pumpkin sowing, weeding and harvesting easier. For instance, he rigs up the corn planter so that it will plant pumpkins, so that, unlike the fi rst year of the festival, they no longer have to sow the 2-acre pumpkin patch by hand. He also helps create the corn maze each year.

The festival crowds have been growing each fall. Plus, the family is opening the festival on one Friday this year to host a fi eld trip for a few classes of grade-schoolers from Pierz. Maus is thinking he may have to expand his pumpkin patch next year.

“Judging by the numbers of people, we’re going to have to start upping the number of pumpkins we plant,” Maus said. “More and more people keep coming.”

With the Maus Fall Festival getting bigger every autumn, preparing for it takes more time and effort. Maus does festival work on top of his already busy schedule. An eighth grader at Pierz, he plays baseball during planting season and football during the harvest, which is also festival season. On school nights after practice, he gets home about 5:30, later if he has a game. He also participates in 4-H animal shows and activities. At home, he has chores to do that come with living on a farm.

“My brother [Tosh] and I feed the animals and try to help Dad as much as we can,” Maus said. “There’s always stuff to be done.”

However, he loves the festival and knows that his work and his family’s efforts allow other families a chance to enjoy the outdoors in a rural setting.

“It takes a lot of hard work, but when everything is done, it’s rewarding,” Maus said.

Now that the festival has established itself as an annual event, the family wants to continue offering it, even after Maus graduates. Each year, any proceeds after costs have been put aside for Maus’s future college expenses. He hopes to pursue a career in agriculture.

“I like being with animals,” Maus said, “and I like operating things and being in charge.”

After launching a farm fall festival at the ripe old age of 12, it seems the journey to his career has already begun.

PHOTO SUBMITTED Braiden Maus (left) sits with his younger brothers, Emmett and Tosh, in 2020 on his family’s farm near Pierz. Braiden was 12 years old when they launched the fi rst Maus Fall Festival.

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