Where's Anti-Pesto when you need them?!

Ugh, what is it with some people that think it's just ok to let domestic pets go free when they get tired of caring for them? We noticed a few weeks back that our neighbor a few houses up had taken down their bunny pen. Then a week or so ago we thought be saw a black rabbit in another neighbor's yard. Strange. Never seen a black wild rabbit before. Yesterday, I looked at my garden as I walked by to go to my car and noticed that a bunny had eaten up my broccoli plants. When I got home last night and took a better look at the damage I found the bunny had also dug a big hole in my onion bed and another in the yard. I fixed up the hole in the onion bed hoping to not lose those plants, but just look at what they did...There's a leaf left on 2 of the broccoli plants, so I put cans around them in hopes they will survive. Thankfully the rabbits haven't developed a taste for any of our other garden plants. I happened to see the neighbor in question out today and mentioned I thought his rabbits might have gotten loose. He had the nerve to say, and I quote "Oh yeah, we know. We've been trying to catch them, but they're just so darn fast. We've even got a kid trying to help us catch them." These neighbors are not old and feeble. They are in their 20s, 30s at most and have 2 kids and a dog they keep up with. They had the rabbits penned all the years they've lived here and never had a problem. I doubt very highly they "got loose" and just can't be caught. But I'm not the confrontational type and didn't want to accuse the guy of lieing, so I just said I'd let him know if I see the rabbits again. I suppose hubby and I can try to catch them and present them to the neighbor. Think he'll give us a reward for the safe return of his bunnies?

Let's have some knitting to lift our spirits, shall we? Here's the body of Milan blocking on a towel.I decided against steaming since it's acrylic and steam sometimes does weird things to acrylic. I just pinned it out as flat as possible on a towel and gave it a good misting with water. I'm getting a bit nervous about the sleeve, I fear my row gauge may be off (I never check my row gauge by the way). But my sleeve seems to be almost as long as my arm and I've got at least 24 rows to go to finish my increases. I'm going to have to sit down with a tape measure and calculator this afternoon and figure out what I need to do to not end up with sleeves that touch my kneecaps!

The yarn came for Flyingdales this week. Here's just a small sampling of the NaturallyCaron.com Country yarn.I bought 10 balls in all in the colorway Plum Pudding. The color is gorgeous. The yarn itself is quite soft, though not as soft as pure merino wool. But there is only around 20% merino in this yarn. The suggested needle size is US 9 to get 4 st/inch. I had to go up to a US 10.5. Of course, that is the one and only needle size I'm missing from my Knit Picks Options set. But I was thinking about placing an order anyway. I'm quite excited to work on this sweater. It's probably a good thing I don't have the right needles or I'd be casting on already!

I FINALLY got back to dying some yarn this week. And oh baby am I ever pleased! I tried a new technique with these and I think the results are stunning.I've not had much luck with darks in the past, but this time I hit the nail on the head for what I'm after. They are even more beautiful in person. They appear almost iridescent. These should be going up on Etsy in the next few days, if I can bear to part with them.

New on my bookshelf this week is 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oaks. I'm not a huge fan of patterned socks, as we've seen with my failure to complete the last 2 patterned socks I started. But these patterns look pretty appealing. I like the Twilight socks and love Socks for Aidan. The Aidan socks are written for a child's size, but I think I might be able to size them up for me. Spice is another favorite. My only disappointment was that many of the socks are in child sizes. But, again, the patterns should be easy enough to size up, so I'm sure I'll get some use out of this book.

Another favorite thing to report this week. And this one is a direct result of listening to Miss Favorite Thing, Meghan's podcast. It is Henna. I am a woman, reaching "a certain age", and have begun the vane pursuit of keeping the grey hairs at bay. Now, I love dyeing yarn. Dyeing my hair on the other hand, not so much. Chemicals are smelly and leave my hair dry and heaven knows what they do to the environment. So when Meghan mentioned she uses henna to color her hair, I thought I'd give it a try. She recommended the Henna for Hair website. There is a metric ton of information on this site. If you are at all interested in hennaing your hair, go hear and read up on it. I used henna from Rainbow Research. Their's is pure henna, but the henna's are preblended so you can achieve the level of red you want without having to blend your own henna. I chose Mahogany. The process is messy, but there is no bad smell. It's very herbal. The stuff was very hard to rinse out, it's kind of like packing your hair with mud and trying to rinse it out. However, it was really worth it. The color is absolutely even. I've never had that result with chemical dye. It's a lovely old penny color, not too bright coppery but not brown either. My hair is soft and manageable. No pictures, sorry, I'm not so good with the self portraits of the back of my head. But take my word for it, it's definitely worth a try if you are looking for a natural alternative to coloring your hair.

PS...title comes from the fantabulous film "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit".