It's such a fascinating environment! I would love to shoot over there a few days. There's some interesting flora and fauna that I haven't seen before :-) Glad to read Sam is able to learn which plant to avoid :') Would be quite a task preventing him from the sharp thingies all over.
I really enjoy these photo stories, they show me place that's very alien to me :-) All green grass and sheep around here! Lol.
The diversity really amazes me sometimes. We are in an area that is primarily creosote bushes, but you can find patches like this one. Not far from here there a LOTS of cacti species, or Joshua Trees, or Yucca zones. There are areas with lots of brush like rabbitbrush and sagebrush, and there are places with enough Mesquite trees to keep cattle fed (that is some good sweet meat btw). It's never quite the same, any more than the forest is just the trees.
Oh, and Sam learns. I've picked more than a few stickery things out of his hide, but he seems to understand where they came from and avoids them.