Hop on a Train, Ride a Carousel -- It's Spring!

Two festivals in Montgomery County next week celebrate the arrival of spring and -- just as important -- spring break for the county's public schools and many area private schools.

Families can explore life on a 19th-century farm Wednesday by digging in a garden, whitewashing a fence, petting animals and scrubbing clothes by hand. On Thursday, they can learn how tree sap is made into syrup and compare homemade syrup from a variety of local trees with the stuff bottled by Aunt Jemima.

From Saturday through March 30, youngsters can ride trains at Wheaton Regional and Cabin John parks, as well as the carousel at Wheaton, all popular attractions that are shuttered in the winter and normally operate only on weekends in the spring and fall and daily in the summer.

Springtime on the Farm on Wednesday is an annual event at the county's Agricultural History Farm Park in Derwood, just east of Gaithersburg. In past years, organizers say, just a few hundred children have attended, meaning no long lines or crowds and lots of room to run around.

Activities include tinsmithing -- punching holes in a piece of tin to make a decorative design that, in the late 1800s, would have adorned a lantern or a pie plate -- hayrides, rug beating and an old-fashioned laundry day.

"It's pretty amazing," says Grace Yick, a naturalist and director of the Meadowside Nature Center, which runs the program. "Once you put water in front of kids and give them something to wash, they really have fun with that."

The Meadowside center, inside Rock Creek Park in Rockville, will host its first maple sugaring festival Thursday. (In the past, the center has offered sugaring only to school groups.) Yick says children and their parents will be able to see the whole process of tapping a tree, collecting sap and turning it into syrup, and then taste the results, in addition to enjoying crafts and other activities.

Elsewhere in the county, a bright red miniature steam locomotive will be chugging along the tracks at Cabin John Regional Park. The train is a replica of the 1863 C.P. Huntington, a steam locomotive. The two-mile ride lasts about 10 minutes.

Another Huntington replica is a popular attraction at Wheaton Regional Park, on the county's eastern side. Its tracks wind through scenic wooded areas and meadows, past Pine Lake and over a trestle bridge. Wheaton Regional also offers an old-fashioned carousel. Built in 1915, it operated on the Mall in Washington for nearly 20 years before being moved to Wheaton in 1981.

Both the carousel and the train station are near picnic areas and the park's playgrounds, which feature some of the best climbing and sliding options around.