Seabornman, What was your experience, was it from an attic? Does it come granular and puffed? A question I have is the degree to which vermiculite is inherently dusty/friable, or is it like 9 inch floor squares, with asbestos locked into a matrix. I learned a couple years ago that some popcorn ceiling material was made with vermiculite. Because of that, I had to retest my ceilings, which did not come back hot. I would recommend to KZ for piece of mind, to speak with an Asbestos testing lab and either have them come out to collect a sample, and test it stringently.

Well, kitchen is now packed, not counting the stuff we will use the next few days but that is condensed to small groupings. I don't have a lot of cabinets and they are not big, but I must be a master magician to have fit so much in them. Each time I'd empty a cab, I am convinced that the contents expanded when exposed to light ;) I threw out a bunch of stuff and did my best to keep it moving. I am now soaking the hamstring I pulled and waiting for the Advil to kick in. I asked our 7.5 y.o. about the symbols on the wall and he admitted he did it. He did not know what they meant but knew they were "German". My mother is German and came to the US as an adult, so how do we explain how awful some of those people were yet not everyone? We told him that it was not a good symbol and was used by some very bad guys who just happened to be from Germany and to never do it again. We also said he'd be kicked out of school if he ever drew that again and the school found out. He looked shocked. He said he saw it on the back of a school bus seat, so I will be calling the school in the a.m.. I am quite proud that I only found 1 instance of "poo" written on the wall (although he did manage 4 swastikas when my back was turned). I think with how worn out I am looking today, the crew would not even want a show from me, lol. I wonder if they take bets on how long it takes for the wife on each project to go from cute to scary. I am moving along the scale rapidly. The first few days, I had makeup on before they came. By today, I let the hammering wake me up, lol. When we were at the bus stop this a.m., our other son asked me if I ever picked up our 2nd a/c from the store. Turns out, it slipped our minds and the store forgot to call and remind us. We took one home and the other was due in later that week (in Aug). I was happy to cross it off the to do list and just moved on. Funny that dh & I did not notice but our almost 9 y.o. did... Luckily, it was still in the warehouse so dh got it today. I keep hearing Billy Joel in my head.. "so much to do and only so many hours in the day"..... Thanks weed, I forgot we have tarps I could use instead. It would be better to use a larger sheet with fewer seams. To illustrate how tired I was earlier, I went to the garage to hit my emergency chocolate stash. I got to the doorway to go to the garage or bsmt and forgot why I was there. I can't believe I forgot chocolate in the 15 seconds it took me to walk towards it. I think I have hit my quota of reno stories and would like smooth sailing with boring updates from here on out. Our gc and his bro (co-gcs) have turned out to be quite nice to work with so I think we got lucky in that regard. Tomorrow's list includes finishing up the living room, dining room and emptying our coat closet. That will leave the weekend for setting up in the bsmt, packing the bathrooms and moving our bed down and furniture into the boys' room. One day at a time...

Please be very careful with anything you put on a cat, that is sold over the counter. It could make the cat very sick, or it could even die. Do not over dose it with flea meds that it may not even need.l A vet would prescribe something that works, and then use nothing else but what the vet prescribes. Quite honestly, if he is scratching his ears, it is most likely nothing to do with fleas. Cats get ear mites, and the treatment is easy. Again, with a vet prescribed medication. And no ear mites are not going to bite you, nor, will you ever see any. And even if you saw a flea, doesnt mean it was from the cat. You can encounter a flea walking down the street, across your yard, or someone elses yard. Someone you work with may have fleas, and they stick to clothing and can transfer to another, or just from standing next to someone in a line for food, or at the bank, or most anywhere. And to answer your question, yes, you are freaking out.

I'm 95% confident in saying that this is either herbicide drift damage or RRD. You may not have used an herbicide yourself, but if you have immediate neighbors and they used Roundup on a breezy day, it could easily drift onto your garden and cause this kind of damage. As this new growth isn't dark red and hyper-thorny, it's more likely herbicide damage, which it will likely grow out of. You can see that new growth started out looking quite normal and then suddenly, it started to grow abnormally. This suggests that something changed, suddenly - like an herbicide event. As your neighbors. I suggest you leave it to grow and watch for the development of more definite signs of RRD (red growth, unusually abundant thorns), and if you see any of that, post new pics and get advice.