Spring is here and it is nice to be home in Quebec at this time of the year

In addition to celebrating Easter with family and friends last weekend, we had an invitation to attend our neighbour's sugar bush party. It was a rather unique experience as everyone participated in the making of maple syrup. Here are some video highlights viewing the collecting of syrup and our celebration of the work done.

Also, provided below is an outline which shows what goes into the production of maple syrup here in Quebec.

Canada makes more than 80 percent of the world's maple syrup, producing about 26.5 million litres in 2005. The vast majority of this comes from Quebec: the province is by far the world's largest producer, with about 75 percent of the world production 24.66 million litres in 2005.

Traditionally, maple syrup is harvested by tapping a maple tree through the bark and into the wood, then letting the sap run into a bucket, which required daily collecting.

Production is concentrated in March, and April, depending on local weather conditions. Freezing nights and warm days are needed in order to induce sap flows.

The change in temperature from above to below freezing causes water uptake from the soil, and temperatures above freezing cause a stem pressure to develop, which, along with gravity, causes sap to flow out of tap holes.

To collect the sap, holes are bored into the maple trees and taps are inserted. Sap flows through the spouts into buckets. Maple sap is collected from the buckets and taken to the Sugar House.

A sugar house is where the sap is boiled down to maple syrup. It takes approximately 40 litres (10 gal) of sap to be boiled down to 1 litre (1 quart) of syrup. A mature sugar maple produces about 40 litres of sap during the 4-6 week sugaring season.

During cooking, the sap is fed automatically by pipe from a storage tank to a long and narrow ridged pan called the evaporator. The evaporator is usually divided into two sections, the front pan and the back pan.

As the sap boils, the water evaporates; it becomes denser and sweeter. As the density of the sap increases, it works its way from the rear of the back evaporator pan to the front evaporator pan. The syrup is boiled until it reaches the correct density of maple syrup.

The syrup we made was fantastic and the party was a lot of fun

Today we are sharing some tips with you on "Your Sales Behaviors will determine Your Sales Results"

Wednesday's video learning program will review Discipline #1, Know Your Rights. I will share the seventh right of ten with you, so stay tuned.

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