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Willow Brook Farm’s store carries beef, eggs, dairy and locally sourced goods and gifts.
Grace DeMarco
MILLERTON — In the second week of July, Ken Beneke sets out on his mower to create an interactive art landscape for the local community in the corn fields of his own Willow Brook Farm.
Along with carrying their own pork and beef, eggs, dairy and produce, accompanied by locally sourced goods and gifts, Willow Brook Farm is also home to an annual and cherished corn maze. “We grow everything, from zucchini and eggplant to tomatoes and potatoes,” said Casey Swift, Beneke’s girlfriend.
Despite its long-lasting success, Willow Brook Farm has not always carried all they do today. Ken Beneke is a third-generation farmer, as his grandfather, Joachim Beneke, started the farm in the 1950s, later passing it to Ken’s father Henry, and is now run by Ken.
“It has definitely grown,” Swift said. Beneke milks about 125 cows, an increase from earlier years. He also made the addition of beef cows which are kept up the road.
The farm’s corn maze has been another valuable and cherished addition to the Beneke family’s farm. The inaugural maze took place in 2019, and while they took the next year off for COVID, Swift added that, “People came and kept wanting it, we should have done it that year, but we weren’t sure what was going on.”
Since 2021, Willow Brook Farm has continued the corn maze annually. With the farm being run by Ken and three other men, Swift says it serves as Beneke’s outlet of entertainment in the midst of busy days on the farm.
“We’ve had a great turnout,” Swift said. “Kids love it, adults love it.”
Planning and creating a corn maze every year is no easy feat, however. Preparation for the maze starts in May, when Swift begins to think about the design. “We don’t give ourselves too much time because otherwise I’ll change my mind over and over again,” Swift admitted, laughing. “Its about two months of preparation.”
“Coming up with a new design every year is a challenge,” said Swift, who designs the plans for Beneke to carry out in the field. This year, Swift was joined by a local boy named Leo, who came up with this year’s barn-themed design.
Swift sketches the design onto a piece of paper and creates a graphic design before she hands it off to Beneke. “Ken’s brain works in mysterious ways. He just holds the paper while he drives his lawn mower, while most people pay to have it done on a GPS. He just does it on his own,” she said.
While creating these plans, Swift thinks of how Beneke will be able to put mower to corn. With last year’s Yankee logo design, there were curves to keep in mind. “I have to think of the curves,” she said. “It obviously works better if there are angles. So we got the curves with the angles. It just took a little time, but he’s just super creative in getting it done.”
After the plan is put in place, Beneke will mow the corn about three times during the preparation season to keep it from growing back, the first of which he began on a sunny Thursday, July 10.
Usually, the maze is ready around the last week of August, when people begin to ask and anticipate its arrival. Customers will be able to come in, pay and walk across the street to complete the maze on their own, given a map to follow, courtesy of Beneke’s friend who provides aerial drone images.
Although opening day to the maze is busy, Swift said that the farm “doesn’t do any grand opening or anything. It is mostly word of mouth, and we haven’t had to advertise yet, which is fantastic. People know we’re going to be here.”
The corn maze has become an important event for not only its customers, but its proprietors as well. “The corn maze is very important to Ken,” said Swift. “He has always wanted to do it since he was young.” It is what keeps the pair excited to create the maze every year.
After last year, Beneke has also been eager to provide a second haunted corn maze on Halloween weekend, which will be put into action by Beneke’s son and Swift’s daughter along with friends. With the previous years being successful, Willow Brook Farm hopes to attract more customers to the haunted maze through advertisements.
For all eager to navigate this year’s Willow Brook Farm Corn Maze, it will be open Thursday through Monday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from late August until the field is mowed after Halloween. It will also be open for groups by appointment. Prices are $12 for adults and $8 for children. Willow Brook Farm is located at 196 Old Post Road off of Route 22 just north of the Village of Millerton.
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Come out, come out, wherever you are
Jul 16, 2025
Have you ever watched a pot of water come to a boil? A pot with cool, still water is placed on a stove and the gas is turned on. At first there are little bubbles forming on the pot bottom, then as the heat builds, the bubbles drift to the surface, more bubbles form and enlarge, rise and the process repeats, expands, grows until the surface is roiling away. America is like that now, as the heated MAGA rhetoric has been turned up, gas bubbles rising, now popping, releasing very heated steam.
The scalding steam you see in our country now comes in the form of verbal rhetoric and even on X postings. Anne Coulter said on X: “We didn’t kill enough Indians.”Other MAGA mouthpieces turn up the heat with statements from the likes of Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”Of course, the leader of the pack is always Stephen Miller who claims that “America is for Americans and Americans only” adding, “restore America to the true Americans,” presumably not meaning the Indian nations.
Another loyal MAGA proponent, Rep. Clay Higgens, took aim at Haitian immigrants, “These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, Vodou, nastiest country in the Western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… All these thugs better get their mind right and their asses out of our country ….” Of course, there’s always Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (interesting they always use her three names, as they do with perpetrators like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jared Lee Loughner of Tucson). Rep. Marjorie is prized for her outlandish BS-heat making with “Jewish space lasers” causing forest fires or arguing that Reps. and Rashida Tlaib were not official members of Congress because they didn’t swear in on the Bible (neither did Trump put his hand on the bible last inauguration either), or that Obama is secretly a Muslim, or equated vaccine requirements to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and, worst of all, once lied that Nancy Pelosi had said that “We need another school shooting.”
When challenged, these folks always resort to, “…we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want.” All the while they perfectly know they are turning up the heat, setting fire to normalcy.
And their “freedom of speech” rhetoric affirmations are bringing whole gangs of MAGA supporters out of hiding, out into the open, like the Neo-Nazi rallies in Nashville, Tennessee, Columbus, Ohio, Portland, Oregon, Cincinnati, Ohio and a town soon near you. And do you see any of them being arrested or charged? That’s part of the usefulness of the MAGA sponsored steam heat, it frightens away true law-enforcement.
So what does one do with a pot of steaming hot water, to which more and more heat is still being applied? Online you can find sensible solutions like, “Listen and Understand” while you disagree, or “Manage your own reactions, keep calm” or “Engage constructively while looking for areas of agreement.”
Or you can do what real Americans do: Hold individuals accountable for using harmful language and lies. But be careful, when their words of stochastic terrorism becomes overwhelming and boils over, you are likely to become aware of your urge for physical retribution —said another way: riots. It is what they are counting on, for you to get so scalded, and then react with violence.
And here’s the lesson: Martin Luther King and Ghandi had it right: Protest in force and numbers non-violently. Oppose them with your presence, be like the young man in Tiananmen Square before those tanks, show up and protest and take the beating, show the real America what is right and expose the real message of fascists. Be the calm of righteousness, not the poison steam of evil. For these people are evil and want to change our nation to gain control over your life — all of your life, every aspect, every moral, every code, every freedom you currently have and will lose if they prevail. We have to oppose them, turn off their heat, before they scald us all.
Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, New York, now lives in Gila, New Mexico.
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The following excerpts from The Millerton News were compiled by Kathleen Spahn and Rhiannon Leo-Jameson of the North East-Millerton Library.
July 19, 1934
‘Lumbermen Kills Huge Rattlesnake’; A huge rattlesnake four feet ten inches in length and having sixteen rattles was killed last week on East Canaan Mountain by lumbermen who exhibited it in Millerton Wednesday evening. The reptile is said to be one of the largest ever seen in that section.
July 17, 1975
‘Town Planners To Make Report Public’; The North East Planning Board met in executive session on Wednesday night, July 16, in order to formulate its position and write up its report on the shopping center proposed for Route 44 on the State line.
The Planning Board is charged with the task of submitting a recommendation to the North East Town Board on whether or not the controversial center should be built.
Planning Board Chairman Harry Schroeder said he hopes to have the report written and ready for the Planning Board’s final approval at its scheduled July 23 meeting: “We should have it written up by then. I should hope so.”
‘Board Plans Increase Of Village Water Rates’; For the first time in 60 years the Village Board has decided to greatly increase the water rates in Millerton. The scale of increase is still being considered.
At a Board meeting on Wednesday night, July 9, Jack Dean, Village superintendent of public works, reported that between 250,000 and 280,000 gallons of water was pumped to 450 customers every day in the Village. The revenue from that brings in an estimated $12,000 to $13,000 a year.
By comparison, asserted Mayor John Hermans, Pine Plains pumps 40,000 gallons a day to 280 customers but takes in revenues of $16,000 a year.
Hermans said this week that “the water system is getting more and more expensive. We can’t give it away anymore. We’re close to running in the red every year.”
Hermans also contended that local industries are not paying for the percentage of water used. He cited that Taconic Products uses approximately 33 per cent of the water, but is not billed accordingly.
The Board is considering a plan to double the present flat rate for water to Village residents. Customers will be billed according to the number and type of water outlets they own.
‘Bicentennial Quilt Contest Continues’; A sewing square competition continues in 3 area towns for the benefit of the Dutchess County Bicentennial Quilt, according to North. East Town Quilt Chairperson Joan Hicks.
The North East Committee will judge the squares made in the town for the county quilt. The entries must be completed by Sept. 1 and left at the Millerton Free Library.
The competition is open to all organizations and citizens in the Towns, of North East, Pine Plains, and Milan. The squares are to depict an historic event, a noted historic building or artifact or a mode of lifestyle, representative of the locale such as farming, candle making, weaving, mining or other industries.
The square must run 12 inches by 12 inches when finished. It should be cut to the measure 13 inches by 13 inches, allowing a ½ inch seam in cotton or cotton blend. The color in the background should be neutral or pastel since the joining strips will be medium blue to incorporate the county colors. The square can be designed by applique or embroidery or any combination.
Ms. Hicks said that she hoped that there would be enough entries in the contest so that the squares not sent to the county could be made into a quilt for the Town of North East. For information contact Joan Hicks or Marion Byron.
July 20, 2000
‘Summer Program Continues at Millerton Library’; MILLERTON - The NorthEast-Millerton Library began its summer reading program July 18. “Discovery 2000 Read,” will last for five weeks and end with a celebration party Saturday, Aug. 19.
Children of all ages are encouraged to sign up at the library so that the books they read throughout the summer may be recorded. For each book that is read, a ticket will be awarded and the child will be eligible for the daily raffle for a chance to pick a prize from the Treasure Chest.
Each week, there will be a different “Guess the number” jar on our registration desk. Guess the number of items in the jar and, at the end of the week, the child who has guessed closest to the actual number will be the winner of the contents of the jar. In previous summers, the jars have contained balls, cars and trucks, candy or school supplies.
Story and craft hours will also take place during the summer program.
Infants to 36 months will have a short nap-time session (20 minutes) Thursdays at 11:30 a.m.; preschool ages 3 to 5 years will enjoy a 45-minute story hour and craft project Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.; and school-age children are invited Saturdays, at 10:30 a.m., for a craft project and story.
‘Rail Trail Association Will Sponsor Celebration’; MILLERTON - The Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association (HVRTA) will sponsor a daylong celebration of the Rail Trail’s arrival in Millerton Saturday, July 29. The day’s activities include a Fun Run for kids and a spike-driving ceremony to mark the connecting of Millerton and Amenia by the Rail Trail.
“The arrival of the trail in Millerton has been long awaited and is a huge milestone for the trail,” said HVRTA chairman Dick Hermans. Mr. Hermans said the number of users on the 8.2-mile Amenia-to-Millerton section has skyrocketed since Dutchess County officially opened the new section from Coleman Station to Millerton June 22.
The celebration July 29 will begin at 8:30 a.m. with a Fun Run for kids on the Rail Trail behind the North East Community Center. “This is just a prelude to bigger, higher caliber races that we hope will be run on the trail in the future,” added Mr. Hermans.
After the Fun Run, there will be a bike parade to Coleman Station for the spike-driving ceremony. Simultaneous bike parades from Millerton and Amenia to Coleman Station, along the Rail Trail, will commence at 10 a.m.
Amenia Town Supervisor Arlene Juliano will lead bicyclists from Amenia, while North East Supervisor David Sherman and Millerton Mayor Michael Cawley will lead bicyclists from Millerton. A panel of judges will select the best-decorated bikes and prizes will be awarded.
At 11 a.m., a golden spike will be driven into the ground at Coleman Station in a ceremony similar to the one that marked the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1800s.
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