The Good Will Ambassador

Olive hasn't warmed up to Korry despite all our combined efforts to convince her that he is not a serial killer. In fact, he is a very sweet man, and probably fortunately for him, quite hard of hearing. Tim tells us that Olive has "fear aggression" around strangers. Korry is hardly a stranger, but perhaps because he doesn't come inside (I wonder why…?) there is no convincing Olive of that. We have to keep her inside the house and away from our bedroom door, because if she sees him she barks like a fury. He is  almost finished with our deck, so I sent Ozzie out to serve as a good will ambassador.

The "wood substance" of our deck, called Trex, is so dense that Korry had to get a different saw and even with it he says the blade bends. Apparently it is made of recycled plastic and wood and appears to be molded with a wood grain pattern, since it has no grain of its own. It almost matches the rest of the decks around the house and never needs any maintenance, which are powerful arguments in its favor, despite the extra time it takes to work with it. The oddest thing about it is the "sawdust" filling  several black plastic garbage bags. It bears no resemblance to real wood sawdust or any other known substance I can think of. I'm sure that, like the dried needles of last year's Christmas tree, it will keep appearing for years….

In other news: Our interest in the Tour de France is flagging since our favorite, American Tejay Van Garderen, riding in third place, had to abandon  yesterday due to illness. I'm surprised they're not all suffering from heat exhaustion….