nice smells

 The first two loaves from the bread machine. One white, with a slightly milky nutty flavour and very light fluffy texture. The other French, with more sturdiness and less distinctive flavour.
I'd been thinking of getting a bread machine (used of course) to try making gluten-free bread for our non-gluten or celiac friends. Then we were given a Sunbeam Breadmaker, by one of said non-gluten friends (Marie-Claude), in a grand passing-on of GF flours and baking supplies.
So I guess bread will be this year's New Baking Thing, like last year's jelly making, and pies the year before.
Now I just need to find a GF bread recipe that doesn't require more than 3 different hard-to-find kinds of flour.

And outdoors, the apple trees are blossoming, with the Transparent (which fruits in August) being the first to open. The scent is faint but sweet.

I brought some of the pruned twigs inside and put them in water, but very few opened. Instead I discovered... (cue chords of doom)
caterpillars.

Do you see any caterpillars in that picture? The little buggers are there, though, invisibly working their nastiness. I've cut three small tents off the Spartan and the Golden Delicious, but not all of them announce their presence so clearly. Some curl up inside leaves and blossoms, and the first you know is that the leaves are eaten to lace or the blossoms drop from broken stems.
I'm anxiously watching the plum tree; so far no sign of renewed canker, so my fingers are crossed for luck.

Tomorrow Mark will be running in the Times Colonist 10K run. I will post about that, possibly with photos, though I will be holed up somewhere drinking tea and writing, because I am not a runner.
Now I must go and work on the Rescue from the Vampire Care Home scenes, if I can just get my characters out of the pub. I hope my story is not infested with caterpillars, eating out plot holes and chewing characters to cardboard.