Last Weekend of Winter

Mornin'!  It's 42° in Wildwood NJ.  It's raining lightly with hardly a breeze (SE 3-5mph).  It'll stay just like it is now throughout the day as temps creep up into the upper 40s and breezes ramp up a bit remaining out of the SE at 10-15mph.  It'll be a gray Saturday with rain showers in the forecast right up until tomorrow morning.  Tonight...rain with winds ramping up and switching to the NE at 20-30mph as temps drop back down into the upper 30s / low 40s.  Tomorrow...will begin gray, cold and windy but Ms Sun will eventually enter sometime in the afternoon and take her final bow as the curtain closes on the last weekend of Winter!  Spring begins on Monday (don't get real excited though as it's still March)!  Oh...I forgot to mention that last weekend's homemade soup was Minestrone and today's is Potato-Leek.
High tide:12:54p.m.
Low tide:6:22p.m.
Ocean temp:43°
Sunset:7:11p.m.

Cream of Potato Leek Soup
6-8 qts of stock (vegetable or chicken)
6 Potatoes (2 red bliss, 2 russet, 2 yellow, peeled, cubed and boiled until tender in ½ the stock)
4 Stalks of Celery (chopped)
4 Green Onions (chopped)
3 Leeks (thoroughly soaked/washed and chopped)
¼ C Parsley or Chives (chopped)
3 Cloves of crushed garlic
2 slices of bacon
2 T butter
1 Pint of Heavy Cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
Then the "pinches"...(equal to approximately ¼ tsp)
Pinch of thyme
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of cayenne (omit if you don't like the "heat")
Pinch of paprika
Pinch of garlic powder
3 bay leaves
In Soup Pot...
Fry bacon until crispy, remove, cool and crumble.  Add butter.
Saute green onions, garlic, celery and leeks in bacon fat and melted butter.
Add all the spices and saute until the veggies begin to break down and soften.
Pour all the soup stock and boiled potatoes along with their starchy boiled broth
along with the bacon bits into the soup pot and cook everything
until soft enough to blend with an immersion blender.
Remove bay leaves then blend everything with the immersion blender.
Add Heavy Cream and continue to blend.
If need be a corn starch slurry can be added to give the broth more thickness (I did it today).
Ladle into a bowl or mug and sprinkle with chopped green onions.
Bon Apetit!