"FYI, my contractor says he will not do any custom blends, so mixing is out. Please help!" First step. Fire your contractor. Mixing stains and doing a custom blend is standard procedure for any pro. The first thing i tell customer when i show them a color chart is that they ae Not limited to just those. Ill mix up whatever you want. Those guys that say you get to choose whats on the chart or nothing are hacks and gives true professionals a bad name. (Dont really fire your guy if youre happy im just venting. But mixing stains is simple. Saying no should raise a red flag)

I am the original poster, and although I mentioned I would update the progress from last year, I never did, so I will now--------! I followed all the advice given here and elsewhere on how to integrate my new cat with the three older barn cats and at first thought it was all on track. But even after two weeks, two of the three barn cats was still chasing the new cat. The barn is not very big and the area they spend most of their time in, the upstairs hay loft, just did not give her many places away from two cats (and sometimes the 3rd) to hide. After two weeks it seemed worse than it had been initially so I finally couldn't take it any more and moved her back down to the house. I just was afraid that even with extra food set out in different areas as well as litter boxes, I worried she would not get a chance to eat, drink or use the box when she had three cats chasing her when they felt like it. This was back in Oct. The elderly house cat I mentioned was not happy at all, but he seems to have settled down and though never will be "friends" with her, has finally seemed to just tolerate her. The one thing is, she tries to stay out of his way and does not challenge him so that I think makes me feel better since he is now 19 years old and seems like a little old man! She seems pretty happy in the house, and when the weather was nice I let her go out into the garden, so that all has been working out quite well. Thank you again for all the help given to me last year. I must admit, a year ago I did not think things would have turned out as they did. I really thought the barn cats would have been more accepting and the elderly house cat less but it was just the opposite.

Let not your heart be troubled. This is an overblown issue. A couple of tiles broken out provides absolutely NO risk to you. These are not frangible tiles that release clouds of dust into the air. Sure, if you were in the business of removing the loosely-wrapped asbestos covering water pipes...and did that for MANY years, sure...there might be an issue. In your case, no. Kinda like walking in the park and there was someone smoking. Are you gonna get cancer from THAT? I sorta doubt it. Don't worry about that. Terrorists are more likely to kill you.........

If you are watering them every day - which is never recommended - then they are drooping from over-watering. The roots are suffocated and unable to get the oxygen they need from the soil. Shallow, frequent watering creates shallow rooted water dependent plants. Less frequent deep watering is always more beneficial to plants. And mulching your plants would go a long way toward helping to stabilize your soil moisture levels. Think of watering in terms of once a week, maybe twice, but deep. But never daily. Dave