Gathering at the Griddle: Maple Days at Valley Road
Second in a series that spotlights Thurman Maple Days, which begins this Saturday, March 15 and runs through March 30.
The late winter air in Thurman, New York, carries a sweetness that seems to hang there long before the sap starts to run in earnest. It’s a subtle perfume—thawing earth, and something else entirely, something that signals the turning of the seasons to those who know how to listen.
Ralph Senecal is one of these people. “You can almost taste it in the air before it ever hits the buckets or the tanks,” he says. To Ralph, that scent is a signal: sugaring season has returned, and with it, the rhythm that has shaped his life for more than five decades.
For Ralph, patriarch of Valley Road Maple, maple sugaring is more than a seasonal occupation. It’s a life’s work, a family tradition, and a gathering point for the community. “As long as the maples stand and the sap runs,” he told me, “we’ll be here. And there’ll be pancakes on the griddle.”
The Early Years
Ralph Senecal has been maple sugaring for 50 years. Every March during Thurman Maple Days, he and his family clear out a shed at Valley Road Maple Farm and invite visitors for pancakes. Breakfast is served from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ralph’s sugaring journey didn’t begin in Thurman. It started back in Vermont, where he grew up working with his parents in the sugarbush. He carried that love of sugaring with him when he moved to New York State in 1966, settling in Warrensburg at the end of that year’s sugaring season. But land was hard to come by, and Ralph didn’t have a sugarbush of his own. Not yet.
That changed when he met Mike Hill. “We were both teaching at BOCES,” Ralph recalled. “Mike was the driver’s ed guy, and I ran the resource room. We got talking, and one thing led to another. He said, ‘You ever think about sugaring here?’ And I said, ‘Every year.’” Soon they were boiling sap together in Mike’s garage behind his apartment building, using a wood-fired evaporator and whatever trees they could find to tap.
“People were real generous back then, letting us on their land. We tapped a few trees around Warrensburg. And it smelled like heaven—if heaven smells like wood smoke and sweet syrup.”
In those days, Ralph and Mike did everything by hand. “We were hauling sap in buckets, gathering after school,” Ralph told me. “George Lane was driving a Jeep with a sap tank on the trailer. Mike and I were carrying buckets. All these kids from the neighborhood wanted to help—‘I won’t spill it, I swear!’ they’d say. But by the time they got the bucket over, they were soaked head to toe.” Ralph chuckled at the memory. “It felt like we were the Pied Piper—everyone wanted to be part of it.”
As small and homespun as the operation was, it planted the seeds for something much larger. Ralph and Mike were building more than a sugaring business—they were building a community.
A Sugarbush of Their Own
The turning point came in 1998, when Ralph and Mike purchased a 22-acre sugarbush on Valley Road in Thurman from a man named Hollis Combs. Hollis was ninety-four at the time. “He’d been sugaring that land since he was 19—bought it from his grandmother,” Ralph explained. “His family had been at it for generations before him.” Hollis told Ralph and Mike, “I’d still be tapping, but they won’t put another knee in me.” He’d worn out his artificial one.
For Ralph, buying that sugarbush wasn’t just a real estate deal. It was the passing of a torch. “We knew we were taking on more than just land,” he said. “We were carrying on his legacy.”
Owning a sugarbush of their own allowed Ralph and Mike to expand. “For the first time, we had a place to call our own,” Ralph said. In 2001, they put up their first sugarhouse so they could boil right on site. That year, with just a few taps, they produced 420 gallons of syrup—almost all golden. “That light, delicate flavor you only get at the start of the season,” Ralph explained.
The whole family pitches in when Thurman Maple Days roll around, including Ralph’s daughter, Michelle. “We go all out,” he said.
Tradition Meets Technology
From the beginning, Ralph and Mike made strategic decisions about how to run Valley Road Maple. They opted for an oil-fired evaporator, something that made sense given their circumstances. “Hollis told us he used to boil 20 to 30 hours straight to keep up with the sap,” Ralph said. “We didn’t have time for that. Mike was still working, and I’d just retired. We didn’t want to spend days cutting and stockpiling wood.”
In 2001, they added reverse osmosis to their process—the first producers in Warren County to do so. “Now, everybody’s got one,” Ralph told me. “But back then, we jumped in with both feet. We went with all new technology—stainless steel everything. We learned a lot along the way.”
The reverse osmosis system allowed them to remove a large portion of water from the sap before boiling, significantly reducing the time and fuel needed to make syrup. “If you didn’t have reverse osmosis,” Ralph explained, “you’d be boiling 10 hours to get through a 1,000-gallon run. With it, we can do it in under two hours and use a fraction of the oil.”
Still, technology never replaced tradition. “We’re sugar makers,” Ralph said. “Not just syrup makers. Not just maple farmers. Sugar makers.”
Throughout it all, family has been at the center of Valley Road Maple. Ralph’s wife Janet has been a constant source of support. “She’s the steady one,” Ralph said. Their daughter Michelle, with her warm smile and easy manner, is the face of Valley Road Maple during busy weekends, and her husband Bill Hall has become Ralph’s right-hand man in the woods.
“Bill’s been out there with me in blizzards, fixing lines buried in snow up to your waist,” Ralph said.
And when Maple Days roll around, the whole extended family gets involved. “Even my wife’s sister comes down, and her husband too,” Ralph said. “Bill’s siblings help out. We go all out.”
The Pancake Breakfast
It was around 2005—or maybe 2006—that the Senecals decided to offer a pancake breakfast during Thurman Maple Days. “At first, it was just a little setup in the viewing area, right by the evaporator,” Ralph said. “We could fit 15, maybe 20 people at a time. And it was chilly in there, let me tell you.” But word got out. “After a couple of years, folks knew it was there. We had people lining up out the door.”
Bill Hall, Michelle’s husband, didn’t know anything about about maple sugaring when he married into the family. Now he’s an expert.
To accommodate the growing crowds, Ralph and his family repurposed their storage building into a dedicated pancake house. “A talented guy did the framing,” Ralph said, “and he used our own lumber. Did a beautiful job on the inside.” Now, during Maple Days, the pancake house hums with life.
“We serve breakfast from nine to one on Saturdays and Sundays,” Ralph told me. Before COVID, they were serving 1,500 breakfasts a season.
“The last two years before the shutdown, we were packed,” Ralph said. “Then COVID came, and we didn’t do it for a couple of years. In 2024, we brought it back and did 850 breakfasts, even with two blizzards. That’s just the way the weather goes. But I think we’re coming back strong. I’m predicting we’ll be back to 1,500 soon.”
For Ralph, the pancake breakfast isn’t just about the food. “It’s about community,” he said.
“People sit down at tables with folks they don’t know and leave as friends. They say, ‘We met last year at the pancake house—let’s come back the same weekend next time.’ That’s what it’s about.”
Sharing the Process
Visitors to Valley Road Maple don’t just eat pancakes—they get a crash course in maple sugaring. In the sugarhouse, Ralph, Bill, or Joe walks them through the process. “We’ve got a path that winds around the equipment,” Ralph explained. “We show them the raw sap, which is about 2% sugar, then the concentrated sap, which can be as high as 18% after reverse osmosis, and then the finished syrup.”
Tastings are part of the experience. “They get to taste it all,” Ralph said. “Golden, amber, dark. Mike and I used to argue—he liked the dark, I liked the golden. But we both agreed amber was the sweet spot.”
Ralph explains how syrup darkens as the season progresses. “At the start, it’s mostly sucrose, which holds up to heat and stays light. As it warms up, you get more glucose and other sugars that darken when they boil,” he said.
Timing is everything. “We’re lucky—we’re retired, so we can boil the same day we gather. Not everyone can do that.”
Carrying the Legacy Forward
Sometimes Ralph thinks back to when they first bought the land from Hollis Combs. “Hollis came back when he was 98, four years after we started boiling here,” Ralph recalled. “He watched the sap come in, saw the reverse osmosis, checked our evaporator. He did the math on our syrup output and said, ‘That’s a good deal.’” Ralph’s face lights up when he tells the story. “That meant a lot.”
Valley Road Maple is more than a business. It’s a living legacy, deeply rooted in family and community.
“It’s the first fire in the evaporator each season that gets me,” Ralph said. “You smell that sweet smoke, hear the roar, and you know it’s time.”
And every visitor who walks through the sugarhouse or sits down to a pancake breakfast becomes part of that legacy. “They tell me, ‘I’ve lived here my whole life and never knew how syrup was made until I came here,’” Ralph said. “They leave with a bottle of syrup and a story to tell.”
At Valley Road Maple, as long as the sap runs and the seasons turn, Ralph Senecal and his family will be there—welcoming everyone with warmth, a plate of pancakes, and a taste of something sweet.
Author’s Acknowledgement
I wrote this story with substantial help from three AI tools.
I describe the process here.
