Some of you may know that I lived in Princeton, N. J. for nine years before I came to California (via Wyoming). For a while in Princeton, I shared a house with another Swedish woman, Christina, and we became lifelong friends. I stay with her and her sister, Inga, when I visit Stockholm. And now she's coming to visit me.
She's arriving in Los Angeles tomorrow, and I will pick her up on Thursday, in Lancaster, after she makes her way there via a shuttle service. So far, we have plans to visit the Getty museum, shown above.
And also William S. Hart Park, where Rachael is responsible for all the animals, over 70, I believe, large: including a couple of boars, and a herd of bison.
And small: many different kinds of birds and some relatively new arrivals, Alpacas.
Christina has friends in Las Vegas and they suggested we meet for lunch here! And where's that?
Oh, just a place I have always wanted to visit. Hoped that Errol and I would, one day, but that didn't happen. Now it looks like it will for me and I'm thrilled. Since Christina can drive here on her Swedish license, we can share the driving, a good thing because I can't drive that far any more.
It has to be a day trip because I can't board Samson anywhere, except at the vet. With his compromised immune system, I don't want him around other sick dogs, unless absolutely necessary, so we plan to go for a day only. Samson has an eye infection now, and I blame that on the medicine that was nowhere to be found. And yes, from now on I will have an extra bottle. They now have that medicine again, and in addition, he's on antibiotics, both oral and eye drops. So he gets three different kinds of eyedrops twice a day, one kind in the middle of the day, and a pill once a day, plus his Prednisone, every other day. I said to the vet, "no other dog, I have ever lived with, would be this good, and put up with all this, being so good about it all." The vet agreed with me. He and Samson know each other well by now.
Other than that, Samson is frisky, as you can see in the picture above, where he's just having a case of coyote madness.
Coyotes come by every day, not just one or two, as has been the case in the 13 years I have lived here. Now they come in large packs, one had about eight puppies, maybe four months old or so. Smaller than Faith. The grownups took them down a hill out of sight of the barking dogs, but the puppies went around, and came back by themselves. Bad puppies!
I think they were curious about the dogs, because they ran right up to them. Which made Faith have a fit of misplaced agression, flipping Samson over on his back. This caused a big puppy fight, with all eight of them rolling around in a big ball. Then two of the adults showed up at the bottom of my property and you should have seen the puppies! Just like bad kids, they knew they were in trouble and they all rushed off in single file, perfectly straight, like you see on the trails they leave. For me, this was a fabulous wildlife adventure. I took some pictures with my phone, but they didn't turn out well.
The bad part about all this is that, for now, I just play ball with Faith outside and walk her on a leash. Or drive around my property to chase away the rabbits. Without a rabbit to chase, she pretty much stays with Samson and me. When it's just she and I out there, she stays with me, but I think she feels I will be safe when I'm with Samson, so she will take off if she spots a rabbit.
So I will be on a blogger break until the middle of March. Christina leaves on the 7th, and after that, I should have plenty of pictures and ideas for blog posts.
Take care and I will see you then.
