Christmas Tree Time at The Rocks!

Frasers and Balsams and Canaans – oh, my! Looking for a fetching fir to trim for the holidays? Well, it’s Christmas tree time at The Rocks Estate! That’s right: the farm opens for the Christmas tree season Saturday, November 21^st, and will stay open right through Christmas Eve. (Closed Thanksgiving Day.)

With row upon row of perfect Christmas trees, two gift shops brimming with unique finds, and all the holiday trimmings even Mrs. Claus could want, The Rocks is ready for the season! You’ll find wreaths and ornaments, skillfully crafted gifts from a myriad of local artisans, and fragrant firs perfect for any room.

On weekends, there are horse-drawn wagon rides through the historic estate. The Rocks’ own Green Father Christmas visits Saturday afternoons through December 12^th. There will be marshmallows for roasting at the fire pit, and Adaptive Sports Partners of the North Country will be serving up hot beverages and other treats for hungry shoppers and tree seekers.

For more information about The Rocks and the holiday season at the farm, visit TheRocks’ online calendar. 

Apple Cider Celebration at The Rocks ~ Columbus Day Weekend

There’s so much to celebrate this time of year at The Rocks – Tag-Your-Own tree season, the opening of our shops, the vibrant colors of fall foliage filling the landscape at the farm and on the surrounding hills.

This year we’re adding one more thing to celebrate: apples!

The Rocks will host our first-ever Apple Cider Celebration over the three days of Columbus Day Weekend, October 10-12, and it will be a delight for the senses! The kaleidoscopic colors of autumn, the taste of freshly pressed apple cider, horse-drawn wagon rides through the farm, and a program on pruning apple trees.

Beyond the myriad rows of Christmas trees growing through the fields at The Rocks, there are nearly 200 apple trees. These are all heirloom varieties and are pruned for the benefit of the many species of wildlife who live on the farm and rely on apples as a staple of their fall diet: deer, bear, coyote, turkey, moose, porcupine and others.

Both The Rocks Marketplace and the Gift Shop – chockfull of gifts, decorations, and the works of many local artisans – will be open during the Apple Cider Celebration, which will run each day of the long weekend from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Wagon rides will be offered Sunday and Monday. The apple tree pruning presentation will be Saturday at 11 a.m. Guests are invited to explore the network of trails at The Rocks, bring a picnic lunch to enjoy in the formal gardens or elsewhere on the Estate, visit the interactive New Hampshire Maple Experience museum, and even “tag” a Christmas tree in the field. (For more on The Rocks’ Tag-Your-Own tree season, check out our last Blog post!) 

For those who want to continue celebrating apple cider, we’ll also have small cider presses available for sale. Sip cider, shop for the holidays, take in the colors of fall…the Apple Cider Celebration has it all!

From our farm to your home ~ Happy Holidays from The Rocks Estate

After this year’s annual flurry of festive fun at The Rocks Estate, we trust our friends and customers are nestled in with beautifully trimmed Christmas trees and visions of sugarplums and other holiday delights dancing through their heads.

In this holiday season, we are honored that so many of you spent part of your Christmastime with us at The Rocks. Whether you ordered a tree through our online shop or walked the fields at the farm to find and cut the perfect one, selected a wreath or a unique gift from our shops, visited with Green Father Christmas, or rode through the Estate in a horse-drawn wagon – we hope your Rocks experience added a bit of magic to your holidays.

Things will be quieter at The Rocks in the days following Christmas, but there is always something happening at the farm. Our trail system is open daily from dawn ‘til dusk (leashed pets are always welcome!).

As the North Country Conservation & Education center for the Forest Society, we also offer interactive educational programs throughout the year, including our Bretzfelder Park Family Educational Series, which returns in February. For these programs and others offered at The Rocks in the coming year, please visit our online calendar.

And don’t forget the New Hampshire Maple Experience returns in March!

For now, from our farm to your home, all of us at The Rocks wish you a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years!

Horse-drawn wagon rides at The Rocks: A conversation with guide Nancy Czarny

One of the most-loved Christmastime activities at The Rocks Estate is the horse-drawn wagon rides through the farm. Teams of huge draft horses pull the wagons, visitors nestle under warm blankets, and a Rocks guide shares stories about the Estate's history, the Forest Society’s mission, and the work that goes into growing those neat rows of perfect Christmas trees.

Nancy Czarny has been volunteering as a Rocks guide for 19 years. Here’s her take on what makes The Rocks a magical place, and why she keeps coming back year after year…

How did you get started volunteering at The Rocks?

I had moved up from Connecticut and was looking for an outreach program of some sort. I saw an ad in the paper looking for people who wanted to go through volunteer training. I signed up, and it was great. I met a lot of new people. And working at The Rocks, with its conservation mission and education work, was a cause that I could really put my heart behind.

Nancy leads a tour with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen aboard.

Have you always been a wagon guide, or have you done other volunteer work, too?

When I started, we were doing lots of educational programs about Christmas trees with the local school kids, and I was involved in that. The children were so responsive, and I just loved the programs we were teaching. I’ve also done the educational piece of the Maple Experience program we do in the spring.

But my favorite thing to do at The Rocks is to be on the wagons during the holiday season. At first, I was a little shy about doing the tours, but once I got started, it was just really fun.

Do you have a script to follow, or does each guide have his or her own routine?

I think we all go off on our own little tangents. I have my own routine I’ve developed over the years.

I have people who have been on my wagon every Christmas season for years and years. So sometimes I ask them questions to see if they can remember the spiel. Or I ask if they’d rather sing Christmas carols, since they’ve heard it all before. But they always want to hear the wagon dialogue again.

One of the things I tell people, beyond the history of the Estate and how Christmas trees are grown, is how The Rocks ships mail order Christmas trees. Each tree is shipped in a seemingly ordinary cardboard box, but it’s lined to keep the tree fresh, and then you open the box and – spring! – there’s your Christmas tree. I send my sister in Florida a Rocks tree each year, and it’s like a little bit of Christmas magic.

What is the question you get asked most often by wagon riders?

Mostly, it’s the children who want to ask the teamsters questions about the horses. The teamsters are fabulous, and the horses are amazing!

Any wagon rides that stand out after 19 years of guiding?

Once I had a very small group, just two or three couples. We usually don’t let people off the wagon during the ride, but I’d been clued in ahead of time that something special was in the works. One couple asked if they could get down at the Sawmill/Pigpen building, which now houses the Maple Experience. They got down, and the man asked his girlfriend to marry him. She said yes. The other couples were their family and friends, so they popped out the champagne. And on the way back, the script went out the window!

I found out later the couple ended up getting married at The Rocks.

What keeps you coming back each year as a guide at The Rocks?

I think it’s just the happiness on the wagons. It gets me in the Christmas spirit. People are there to get the tree. It’s a happy family experience. It’s a time that they just enjoy. Along the way, they learn something about the Forest Society, about how Christmas trees are grown, what life was like back at the turn of the last century.

People are just happy on those wagons!

To find out more about what's happening at The Rocks this season, please visit us online, and stay tuned to our Blog... Our shops are now open daily, and the farm opens for cut-your-own and retail Christmas tree sales THIS weekend, Nov. 22!

Spring brings return of NH Maple Experience to The Rocks

Maple syrup lovers, rejoice! The New Hampshire Maple Experience returns to The Rocks Estate March 15 and will run weekends through April 5.

Anyone who’s visited during the Maple Experience in past years knows the event is a feast of the senses, with spectacular views, the heavenly sent of sap boiling into syrup, and – to top it all off – a syrup tasting, complete with fresh donuts and the requisite sour pickles.

Maple Experience visitors learn about the history of maple sugaring and are invited to jump right into the process by helping identify sugar maple trees, drill and tap them to collect sap, and fill a New Hampshire Maple Experience commemorative mason jar with warm syrup at our own sugar house.

While at the sugar house, guests will see fourth-generation sugar maker Brad Presby at work. Brad loves to spin a good yarn, and he’ll happily answer questions about his springtime work of making maple syrup and sugar.

Maple Experience tours also include a horse-drawn wagon ride through the Estate, with an interpretive guide on board each wagon to share information about sugaring and the history of The Rocks.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience runs March 15, 22-23, 29-30 and April 5, with tours scheduled throughout the day. Reservations are recommended and may be made by e-mailing info@therocks.org or calling 603-444-6228.

For more information about the Maple Experience, please check out the New Hampshire Maple Experience website.

A day at The Rocks: Christmas trees, wagon rides, good cheer, and a touch of holiday magic

Meghan McCarthy McPhaul Blogs for The Rocks Estate and the New Hampshire Maple Experience. This is her account of her family's recent visit to The Rocks to select a Christmas tree.

My family makes the quick drive to The Rocks Estate each year to find our Christmas tree. While the experience varies from year to year, it’s always festively fun – and a bit magical.

Last year, the kids tromped happily through the fields to find our perfect tree. I lost track of how many gleeful cries of, “This one is perfect!” we heard before finally settling on the tree we would cut and bring home to trim. There’s a common idiom about “a kid in a candy store”… well, a kid in a field of Christmas trees is just as happy!

On tree seeking day this year it was a bit chilly and windy, even for my hardy North Country kids, so we opted for the easy route and headed to the retail tree lot. There, we found a fantastic selection of already-cut Christmas trees. We hemmed and hawed between the Fraser firs and the Balsam firs and ultimately selected the latter. (We had measured the space our tree holds at home before heading out. These tree selection tips are helpful!)

Each holiday weekend at The Rocks, there is a local group whose members are standing by to help tree seekers (and who happily accept tips to help fund their organizations). Our Christmas tree elves were from Littleton’s Daisy Bronson Middle School Student Council. We showed them which tree we wanted, and they carted it off to be processed for pick-up out front. Other groups helping this year are the sophomore and 8^th grade classes from Littleton High School. Inside the Rocks Marketplace, the Profile Booster Club sells beverages and treats for hungry holiday shoppers.  

A visit to The Rocks really feels like a community event!

Before picking a tree, my kids wanted to say hello to the huge horses who pull the wagons carrying visitors around the historic Estate. While time didn’t allow us to take the tour this visit, we’ve enjoyed it in the past, and each time we learn something new about The Rocks from the friendly guides on board. This trip we said hello to the 1,900-pound Sampson and his wagon mate Giovanna. Their handler cheerfully answered our questions about the huge and beautiful horses and their special shoes, which allow them to gain traction in the snow and dirt they work in, both at The Rocks and in their other job – logging the woods of Vermont.

(Reservations are recommended for the wagon rides, although walk-ons are allowed if there is space. To make a reservation, email info@TheRocks.org or check in when you arrive at the farm.)

After selecting our tree, we popped into the Farm Store to peruse the ornaments, wreaths, Rocks Estate maple syrup and other holiday goodies. Next, we headed up to The Rocks Marketplace and all the fantastic holiday fun it holds. From locally made chocolates and pottery to fun home décor and beautiful scarves, the Marketplace is bursting with festive holiday and gift items – and friendly Rocks workers, too! For more about the shops, check out this post. 

On our way to the Marketplace, we ran into The Rocks’ very own Green Father Christmas, all decked out in his evergreen-hued robe. He approached us and handed each child a small fir tree seedling. We’ll follow the instructions on the attached tag (which also indicated the trees are sponsored by the Bank of New Hampshire) to pot our seedlings through the winter and plant them outside when the ground thaws.

Throughout this year’s outing to The Rocks, we could smell sugar in the air, as the friendly folks from Kingdom Kernel Kettle Corn cooked up fresh batches of their kettle corn. Tradition dictates that we bring a bag of the salty-sweet goodness home along with our Christmas tree, so we stopped in on the way to the car. We sampled their yummy Snickerdoodle flavor, but ultimately stuck with our favorite Maple Kettle Corn.

There are as many ways to enjoy the holiday season at The Rocks as there are visitors to the farm. Some families visit the nearly life-size wooden snowpeople (made locally and available in many sizes for purchase at the Marketplace). Others make a weekend out of their Rocks visit with the Christmas Memories vacation package, offered in conjunction with area inns and hotels. And many folks who have moved away order a Rocks tree or farm-made wreaths for friends and family every year from the online shop.

If you’re lucky enough to visit The Rocks during the holidays and find your perfect Christmas tree, you’re guaranteed a grand time and plenty of holiday cheer!

Last week for online Christmas tree orders at The Rocks ~ and final weekend for Green Santa and wagon rides, too!

Christmas is just two weeks away, and we’re in the full swing of the holidays at The Rocks Estate...

If you’re planning to order a Christmas tree through our online shop, this is your last week to do so! If you live outside of New England, place your order by this Thursday, December 13^th, to ensure holiday delivery. If you live within the region, the ordering deadline is next Tuesday, December 18^th.

The Rocks’ own Green Santa will make his final appearance of the holiday season this Saturday, December 15^th. Santa will be at the farm from 10:30 a.m. through 3 o’clock and will be handing out Christmas tree seedlings to all the good boys and girls who visit. Our horse teams will be also be tacked up and ready to give wagon rides both days this weekend. Visitors are encouraged to make reservations for the horse-drawn wagon rides through the farm.

For more details on what’s happening at The Rocks, please visit our online calendar.

For all you last-minute shoppers out there, our gift shop and the Rocks Marketplace will be open daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., right through December 23^rd, and the shelves are stocked with wonderful and unique items for everyone on your list!

Let the Holidays begin!

The Rocks Estate opens for the Christmas tree season November 19^th. We’ll be open daily (except for Thanksgiving Day) through Christmas Eve, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Visitors may meander the farm in search of the perfect Christmas tree to cut or select a pre-cut tree from our retail lot. And if you visited The Rocks earlier this fall to tag a tree, you’re welcome to return now to cut your Christmas tree and bring it home for trimming.

While you’re here, we invite you to enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride, browse the selection of wonderful gifts and holiday decorations in our shop, and enjoy a cup of cocoa, roasted marshmallows at our marshmallow pit, and freshly popped corn from Kingdom Kernels Kettlecorn Company. Our wreath makers have been hard at work creating and decorating our fresh evergreen wreaths, and we also offer kissing balls and garland for decking the halls in style!

As always, our Christmas trees, holiday wreaths, gifts and ornaments are available at The Rocks and through our online shop. We have everything you need to Deck the Halls this holiday season!

Stay awhile with our Christmas Memory Package

Take a break from all the hustle and bustle of the holidays with our Christmas Memory Package. With a stay at one of the area’s quaint inns or comfortable hotels, a horse-drawn wagon ride through the historic Rocks Estate property, http://therocks.org/history.php and a beautiful farm fresh Christmas tree to bring home, the Christmas Memory Package is a wonderful way to get into the holiday spirit, whether you’re looking for a family celebration or an intimate mountain getaway.

Learn More With Our Mobile Tour

New this season is The Rocks Mobile Tour – combining cutting edge technology with holiday tradition! Our tour uses Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) to relay information about the fascinating history of The Rocks, wildlife habitat and forest management efforts at the property (which serves as the North Country Conservation and Education Center for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests), and the different types of Christmas trees we grow here.

Simply use your smart phone to snap a photo of the mobile tag at each of the 13 stops along the tour, and you’ll have access to historic photographs and staff knowledge right at your fingertips!

To find out more about what’s happening at The Rocks NOW, check out our YouTube videos and "like" us on Facebook.