A pancake feed featuring homemade maple syrup will be held in Pottawattamie County this weekend. Botna Bend Park located outside of Hancock will be the site of the big breakfast from 8:30- until 11-a.m., Saturday. Park Ranger Jon Fenner says your free will donation breakfast will leave you feeling full. “We’ll have good hot coffee in the morning, orange juice and then pancakes, pure maple syrup and we get sausage from Gress Locker. They donate sausage every year.”

Making homemade maple syrup is a process that starts earlier in the year. “Right after winter, late February early March when the trees are coming out of their dormant period they start to bring up the sap from the ground and it is all the stored food that they have in their roots that they bring up. We tap the trees and able to take some of the sap that has some of that sweet sugar, maple flavor and we take that down and boil it to make syrup.”

Fenner says it takes 40 to 50 gallons of sap to produce just one gallon of syrup. During the breakfast, tickets will be sold for the fundraiser raffle to benefit the children’s craft program at Botna Bend with the top prize being a handmade quilt created by Botna Bend Park volunteers.

Other prizes include a jar of homemade maple syrup, a hand crafted bird feeder and two chances for a free weekend of camping at Botna Bend. Tickets are $1 each or 6 tickets for $5. Botna Bend Park is located at 42926 Mahogany Road near Hancock. Visitors can take exit 40 off Interstate 80 then south 8 miles on U.S. Highway 59 and follow the signs to the park. For more information, contact Botna Bend Park at 712-741-5465 or online at www.pottcoconservation.com.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)