Tomapo Farm: ‘My Biggest Concern Was, How Do I Do It All?’

In 1769, Heidi Bundy’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Nathaniel Storrs began clearing a 50-acre parcel in Lebanon, New Hampshire, for a family farm. More than 250 years later, his descendants still own and operate the 400-acre Tomapo Farm, which specializes in maple syrup production.

Bundy, 64, is the eighth generation of family farmers there — and it’s an honor she never saw coming. “It was sort of this unsaid rule that the man inherited it,” she says of the farm.

(From left, rear) Dennis Bundy, Bruce Townsend, Merinda Townsend and Heidi Bundy at Tomapo Farm’s main house. Seated on the steps are Heidi’s daughter Merinda Bundy and Merinda’s daughters, Rosemarie and Maddylynn. The Townsends are descended from Nathaniel Storrs, who began what is now known as Tomapo Farm in 1769. (Tomapo is an acronym for Townsend’s Maple Orchard, a name that was first used in the 1950s.)

Heidi Bundy's great-great-great grandfather, Abel Storrs, kept a journal for many years. These pages date to 1868.

After graduating from college, Bundy worked a variety of jobs until 1990, when her father, Bruce Townsend, asked her if she wanted to come home and work as Tomapo Farm’s bookkeeper. Bundy said yes and moved back to New Hampshire with her husband, Dennis, now 65, and their newborn child. In 2016, after years of gentle nudging from her father, Bundy finally agreed to take over the farm. “My biggest concern was, how do I do it all?” she says.

To answer that question, Bundy took a course designed for women working in farming, where she learned a valuable lesson: You don’t have to know it all to do it well. “I don’t have to know how to fix every tractor.… I don’t have to have the muscle to do whatever the heavy lifting is,” she says. “I just have to know what my resources are.”

After that epiphany, Bundy felt more confident taking over the responsibilities at Tomapo Farm. She processed 80 cords of firewood every summer until 2023, and today she keeps a vegetable garden and laying chickens in addition to the farm’s 2,000 maple taps.

   

Watch Heidi Bundy tap a maple tree at Tomapo Farm.

Tomapo Farm’s maple syrup is sold on the farm and at local retail outlets.

Bundy is starting to think about what Tomapo Farm’s next generation might look like, but she isn’t pressuring her five children to take it over. She’s made it clear that they shouldn’t do it because they feel responsible but, rather, because they want to.

“Each time there’s been a new generation, there’s been a new or different agricultural pursuit,” she says. Over the years, they’ve raised sheep, oats, wheat, corn, hay and apples in addition to the maple trees.

Though the children enjoy working on the farm, they could face many challenges to keep it in business. “We are dependent on the weather for all of our crops. Hurricanes, ice storms, droughts — those affect our trees,” Bundy says.

Smoke rises from the maple syrup evaporator inside the sugar shack at Tomapo Farm, which has around 2,000 maple trees on the property. Maple sap is typically harvested in late winter or early spring.

   

Family member Robert Townsend fills bottles with fresh maple syrup.

And it’s not just the weather she has to worry about, either. “Our tax burden just eats up our profits,” she says. Unless something changes, Bundy thinks they’ll eventually have to leave for that reason.

Though the future is uncertain, she has no shortage of hope, and her family has put plans in place for the unexpected. For example, in the 1980s her grandfather sold the development rights for Tomapo Farm to the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food as part of a program that protects the state’s farms from being turned into housing, businesses or other uses. That could give her property a better chance of survival against urbanization than many old farms across the United States.

“If anybody wants to develop it,” Bundy says, “it’ll cost them a lot extra.”

Tomapo Farm is well known for its longevity. This sign can be seen on the road leading to the farm.

Tomapo Farm in early spring. The nearly 400-acre spread specializes in maple syrup production.

Bottles containing maple syrup line the shelves inside the sugar house at Tomapo Farm. Maple syrup is the farm's signature product.

Heidi Bundy at Tomapo Farm’s sugar shack. In addition to the maple trees, she also tends to a vegetable garden and raises chickens for laying eggs.