My husband, whose sense of taste still hasn't returned to normal post-open-heart surgery, and nor has his appetite yet been fully restored, yesterday thought he might as well use the pint of whipped cream he had bought on a whim, intending to make up a batch of ice cream. Instead of fiddling around with the ice cream maker, however, he entertained second thought and decided he'd just whip the cream to produce a batch of whipped cream to complement the apple pie I'd baked earlier in the day.

So that's what we enjoyed for dessert last night. Apple pie with a nice flaky crust whose interior had been spiced up with snippets of candied ginger, slathered over with whipped cream, a taste-bud-filled indulgence to follow our meal of chicken soup with rice, gingered-tomato chicken breasts, potato pudding and roasted cauliflower.

Our ravine walk that took place much earlier in the day saw plenty of others out walking, either individually, or with their companion dogs. At one juncture we stopped to talk with one acquaintance and his single dog, when another came by with three dogs, and another yet with a dog of her own, and with our two that made for quite a few, large and small, milling about us excitedly, and leaping about in the snow.

Several days earlier we'd had a light dusting of snow, returning the landscape to its fairy-tale temporary state of scintillating beauty. But it was an ephemeral vision, given the turn our weather has taken of late, giving us day after day of moderate temperatures, inclining the snowpack to begin a melt, diminishing its size, though hardly noticeable in the forest.