It's Maple Time!

We love winter at The Rocks Estate, but we’re also really excited to see the days growing longer, the sun making more regular appearances, and the sap buckets appearing on sugar maples around the property.

That’s right – its maple time! Maple sugaring season is always a favorite in this neck of the woods. Those buckets – and the more modern plastic tubing that reaches from tree to tree – are a sign that spring is on its way, and that our stores of maple syrup and sugar are about to be replenished!

A young guest helps tap a tree.

At The Rocks we love sharing the history, process, and pure deliciousness of maple season through our interactive New Hampshire Maple Experience. Visitors to the farm during maple season will hear about the long and intriguing history of this early spring ritual of the north woods, learn how to identify a sugar maple, and get a chance to tap a tree – the first step in collecting the sweet sap that is boiled down into maple syrup.

Other highlights of the Maple Experience include horse-drawn wagon rides through the estate and a visit to our working sugar house, where 4^th-generation sugar maker Brad Presby shares an insider’s knowledge of all things maple.

The Maple Experience culminates in a syrup tasting, complete with a fresh donut to savor the sweetness, and a tart pickle for contrast. That pairing is as much a rite of spring’s arrival as buckets hanging from trees and smoke rising from the sugar house.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience comes to The Rocks Estate this year on March 14, 21-22, 28-29, and April 4. For more information, please call us at (603) 444-6228, visit the Maple Experience website, or check our online events calendar. 

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.

Tapping a sugar maple at the NH Maple Experience

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.

Experiencing NH Maple via wagon ride

All aboard for wagon ride fun at The Rocks!

Horse-drawn wagon rides are a tradition at The Rocks Estate, during both Christmas tree season and Maple Tours. Here, writer and Rocks visitor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul describes the joy guests of all ages feel with a ramble through the farm.

A trip to The Rocks is always fun, but when the horses are there, the visit becomes downright enchanting. Like many kids, mine have a thing for horses. Even before they could talk, they would do their best to whinny from the back seat of the car any time we passed a horse in a field.

Our first visit to the New Hampshire Maple Experience was on a typical spring day – chilly, a little bit wet, but bright. We heard about the history of maple sugaring, learned from Nigel how to identify and tap a sugar maple tree, visited the sugar house, and even tried the sweet-and-sour combination of pickles and maple syrup, complemented by a fresh donut. But the highlight of our morning at The Rocks was the wagon ride.

The horses that pull the wagons at The Rocks are HUGE. Depending on the team, they are either Shires or Belgians, breeds of draft horses that can be as tall as 19 hands and weigh upwards of 2,000 pounds. The horses’ heads tower above even a tall adult, but they look down at curious visitors with gentle eyes, a characteristic that goes along with the breeds’ size.

The author and two of her horse lovers.

The men who drive these teams at The Rocks are always great about letting us approach the big horses and pet their noses. I’ll admit that it’s not just the kids who have a thing for horses, so does their mom. I welcome any opportunity to stroke a soft, hay-scented equine muzzle. It seems we are not alone in our love affair with these beasts of labor, as the horses tend to draw an enthusiastic crowd whenever they are at The Rocks.

After we said hello to the horses at the Maple Experience, we climbed on board the wagon and claimed a hay bale for a seat. The horses set to work, and off we went down the tree-lined lanes of The Rocks.

Each wagon has a guide along for the ride, to share little tidbits about the captivating human and natural history at The Rocks. The day we visited, we lucked out and had as our guide Barb Desroches – known to my children as “Ms. Barb,” because she visits their school to teach environmental education each month.

While the adults in our wagon peered into the branches high above to see if we could distinguish the sugar maples from the red maples along the way and peppered Barb and our driver with questions, the kids simply delighted in the gentle sway of the wagon and in the chilly air of the spring day.

My kids had a great time throughout the Maple Experience. They liked helping to tap a tree, seeing the steam billowing around the sugar house, and eating donuts dipped in sweet syrup. When asked about their favorite part, though, they all pick the wagon ride. “I liked petting the horses," says one. "I liked being up high in the wagon and looking out of the wagon and seeing the sap buckets on the trees and other things at the farm."

Once we returned to the main building, the kids gave a parting pat to the horses, we grabbed a bag of fresh-popped maple kettle corn, and we headed home happy and having learned a good deal about maple sugaring. I know that on our next trip to The Rocks we’ll all be looking forward to saying hello again to our great big equine friends.

One More Weekend of Maple Tours

The cold days of mid-March are warming to April, and the sap is flowing! We expect a beautiful weekend to close out our Maple Tours at The Rocks Estate. 

More than 600 folks have enjoyed the tours so far this season… make sure you get in on the fun by joining us this weekend. Tree tapping, horse-drawn wagon rides, a tour of a working sugar house, and samples of the good stuff – pure maple syrup – are all part of the New Hampshire Maple Experience. 

“This may be the most pleasant weekend to be at the farm for the program and to see the sap flow,” says Rocks manager Nigel Manley.

Come see for yourself!