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.
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| 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.
