Happy Easter 2026

I have a ton of cake recipes on this blog. They are only on here so I can find them easily or share with family members. It is much easier to put the name in the search box than to go into my disorganized recipe drawer and look. Most are written on a piece of an envelope or a sheet of stationery paper. My husband organized all my recipes at one point, but I am a creature of habit. I never caught onto his "system". I didn't let him throw away the originals and I still have them. Once a year he also organized the freezer but I would always forget to check off something when I used it. He is gone now and when I look at his binders of recipes, I think of how good he was at doing it and I should have tried harder. 

For Easter this year I made the usual Carrot Cake and a Chocolate Cake. 

The Carrot Cake is on the blog from December of 2014. https://www.thecabincountess.com/search?q=carrot+cake I also have the recipe from my mom written on a piece of typing paper.  Between the blog, the recipe written in red ink on stained paper and Mike's binder, I should be able to find it easily.

I also made a Chocolate Cake. I have some chocolate cakes on this blog too, but most are made by doctoring up a cake mix. I didn't have a cake mix so I made this one from scratch. It is almost as easy so that wasn't a problem. 

 I believe it was from Allrecipes.com. I googled several but this is the one I settled on. It took normal ingredients that I already had on hand.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar

1 3/4  cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup oil (I used avocado oil)

2 t. vanilla

1 cup boiling water

Directions:

1. Stir sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl.

2. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; mix for 2 minutes on medium speed with an electric mixer.

3. Stir in the boiling water. The batter will be thin.

4. Pour into the cake pan.

5. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes.. 

Cool completely and frost with icing of your choice.

I made a Chocolate Butter cream frosting. 

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 t. vanilla

About 2-3 T. milk 

Mix together and add the milk gradually until its the consistency you like.

I didn't want to go to the store for this recipe but I didn't have quite enough powdered sugar for the frosting. Since I sometimes make my own, I made a batch.

Powdered sugar is easy to make. It only takes two ingredients. White sugar and cornstarch. I mixed two cups of sugar and two tablespoons of cornstarch in a high speed blender. It only takes 30 seconds until it's finished. 2 cups of sugar equals about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of powdered sugar. No need to make a trip to the grocery store.

We had a very nice day today. The family was together and we had a very good meal. As old as they are my grandchildren had fun doing the traditional egg hunt without eggs. The Easter bunny hides bottles of Sprecher soda for them to find. Then they trade for their favorite flavor. They are big into traditions and this is one of them. 

 

Photos of Spring Migration

Even though I have posted most of these photos on Facebook, I wanted a permanent record to put in my book. This spring (2026) I have had a lot of action in my marsh and in my outings. Last weekend my granddaughter wanted to go out and take some photos. We don't get to do it very often, but she has an artistic eye. It is fun to see what she sees compared to me. Except for the two of us, the rest of the family were on spring break. We didn't see a lot of action because it's a little early for spring migration, but we had a great time. Every season has its beauty and we will go back in a couple weeks for more.

 

A few days later I was inspired by the time with my granddaughter so I decided to go to a park I know to see if the loons have arrived. There is a nearby lake where the loons congregate before they continue to northern Wisconsin. I don't know where they come from but they spend a few weeks here until all the ice is out of the northern lakes. Nature knows.

It was a cold day, but I wanted to see what I could find. I was the only one in the park except for one walker. I parked the car. Five pelicans were swimming in single file across the lake. There were quite a few loons. A lot more will arrive in the coming weeks, but I saw several. A group of Common Mergansers were floating with the current in the lake. Then I saw a juvenile Eagle fly across the lake. He landed right above me. I went to take a picture and noticed there was another adult eagle already in the tree snacking on something. I was so happy I could barely remember how to take a picture. I didn't want to scare them.

I took so many pictures. Here are a few of them. Whatever the eagle was feasting on, he was concentrating.

 

 

The marsh is coming to life too. There will be many more ducks in the next few days, but right now the early arrivals are making their presence known. Hooded Mergansers and Wood ducks are the first to arrive along with the nesting Sandhill Cranes, the Great Blue Herons and a lot of geese.

The  Sandhill Cranes are looking for a nesting location. They choose what they think is a perfect spot and then nature steps in. This pair got their nest all ready and then it was surrounded by water. They may or may not use this nest. It is still early. 

A Great Blue Heron visits everyday. Sometimes a friend comes for a visit. 

The spring bird migration is also just starting. In the next couple months a variety of birds will be migrating back from their southern homes. The first to arrive was the Red-winged Blackbird. Hopefully most of these will move on. I don't mind a few but they are coming through in big numbers.  The European Starlings are also back. Both of these breeds can clean out a birdfeeder in short order. A few will stay but hopefully most of them will move on.

It is almost April. The bird maps are showing billions of birds migrating. It is mostly at night because there are less predators and it is cooler in the southern climates. It is one of my favorite times of the year.

The Spring of 2026

I am a born and raised Wisconsin girl. Whenever I run into anyone from the southern states who have never visited here, I get the same response. They think I live in the Arctic and have only cold weather all year long. Wisconsin equals Tundra and the Green Bay Packers. They think we never see any warm weather. Little do they know that we really do have four seasons. Summer can get very warm, sometimes a 100 degrees. Fall is usually nice with beautiful colored trees and mild temperatures. Winter is cold but we usually don't have a ton of snow here in south central Wisconsin. We have wonderful efficient heating systems. I go by how many times I need to have my driveway plowed. I usually only need it plowed twice in the winter and then there is spring. Spring is a mixture of all of the seasons put together. There is a saying in Wisconsin that says if you don't like the spring weather just wait a couple hours. 

This spring is no exception. We have had it all. The month of March has been a challenge. We have had temperatures in the mid-sixties which felt like 80 degrees to us. We have had migrating birds show up. 

We have had sunny days and foggy days. Then when we get comfortable and think our winter is over, BAM we get hit with a big snowstorm. It usually happens around the state basketball tournaments. This year it was the girl's tournament. Fortunately the worst of it didn't happen until after the games were completed. 

The full moon was on March 3. It was clear and beautiful. This was the Worm Moon because it usually coincides with the ground thawing. That means the earthworms can emerge. 

There was still a little snow and ice on the water but it felt like spring was in the air.  The Sandhill Cranes had returned and the world was coming to life.

On Monday of last week it was a beautiful day. Temperatures were in the 60's and it was nice and sunny. I opened all my windows to air out the house. I sat on my deck and had coffee. Life was grand. I watched as the Sandhill Cranes were picking out a nesting spot. The Wood Ducks, the Ring-necked ducks and the Hooded Mergansers were resting after a long migration. The ice was out so they had a landing spot. The Canadian geese and Ring-beaked gulls were also busy flying around.

 

 

Tuesday March 10 was also a nice day. When the weather warms up quickly and there are high winds the ice on the lakes and rivers breaks up. Sometimes it pushes the ice to the shore. They are called Ice Shoves. I heard that there were ice shoves on Lake Winnebago. Lake Winnebago is the largest inland lake in Wisconsin and it is about 45 minutes east of where I live. I thought I would take a drive. It is always amazing to see the beauty and power of the shoves. I wrote about them in 2017. https://www.thecabincountess.com/search?q=Lake+Winnebago The shoves that year came ashore as big sheets of ice. This year they looked like large ice cubes.

Wednesday through Friday were just normal and quite cool spring days. I heard that we were expecting some snow over the weekend, but I didn't pay much attention. There is always a snowstorm during the Wisconsin state basketball tournament so I should have been aware. The storm was to arrive on Saturday. Saturday wasn't bad. It was sunny in the morning but then the clouds rolled in. It started to rain and sleet and then snow. With the rain we didn't have a huge accumulation. I measured about 5 inches, but phase 2 was on it's way. Overnight we got more snow and then the winds started to blow. By Monday, one week after our nice warm day, we had more than a foot of snow. Places north of me got in excess of 24 inches of snow. It was a whopper of a storm. In one day, this is the progression of the storm.

Now it's time to dig out. Schools and businesses were closed. It was suggested that people not drive on the roads because they were dangerous and the plows needed to work clearing the roads. I don't remember such a big storm in a very long time. The good thing about spring storms is that they melt quickly. It is supposed to be warming up again by the weekend. Hopefully the frost is out of the ground and the melting snow will soak into the ground and not cause flooding. 

It is St. Patrick's Day today. Our usual celebration did not take place this year. It is the first time in many years I did not make corned beef and cabbage. I had the ingredients but it got put in the freezer for a better time. As my daughter's mother in law said, "Leprechauns are tricksters". The trick this year was a snow storm. The celebration will have to be at a later date. The little fellow's house looks pretty deserted at this point anyway. Maybe I will get a Shamrock Shake to tied me over. 

We still have two weeks of this month to go. Who knows what will be in store for us. Hopefully it will be sunshine and flower blooms. I guess we will have to wait and see.