Ranches & Homesteads
Please note that these ranches are private property and may require prior permission to access without trespassing. Exceptions are; China Ranch and Slash X Cafe.
China Ranch
Public Access - In the late 1890's, a chinese man who had worked in the borax fields in Death Valley came to this canyon. He began a ...Desert Queen Ranch
Private - In the high desert country rugged individuals tried their luck at cattle ranching, mining, and homesteading. William F. Keys and his family are ...Kemper Campbell / North Verde
Private - Victor Valley's first ranch of note.Las Flores
Private - Near this spot on March 25, 1866, Edwin Parrish, Nephi Bemis and Pratt Whiteside, young cowboys employed on this ranch, were ambushed, ...Old Woman Springs
Private - Historic Old Woman Springs Ranch remains private property to this day. The ranch consists of over 400 acres of deeded land with ...Palisades
Private - These low bluffs and narrow canyons of fine-grained river and lake deposits were created by wave-action from a long-ago ...Slash X
Public - South of Barstow on Barstow Road (SH 247) is the Slash X Ranch and Cafe. The Slash X Ranch was started in 1942 by ...Rancho La Liebre
Private - The rancho of the hare or jack-rabbit was the southernmost of a great quartette of mountain ranchos founded by ...Rock Springs Ranch
Private - Stagecoach stop on way to Holcomb ValleyOX Ranch
Private - East Mojave ranch in Lanfair ValleyThe Rat Trap
(Author Unknown)
Rats will eat whatever rats eat because that is what rats were designed to do. Rats, regardless of what they eat, all like and unanimously agree that they prefer cheese over any other rat food.
There was a hungry rat on a ranch peeking through a crack in the wall watching the rancher and his wife open a package. The ranch rat was hoping it was cheese in the package. "If not cheese," he wondered, "what food might it contain?" He was aghast to discover that it was a rat trap. This confounded contraption could be the device of his demise.
Panicking the rat ran to the barnyard the rat hysterically shouting the warning; “There’s a rat trap in the ranch house, a rat trap in the ranch house!”
But no one seemed to care.
He ran to the chicken coop. The chicken, the largest one, clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Pfffttt . . . Excuse me, Mr. Rat, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it. I do not care. Please, step away.”
The rat then ran to the pig pen. Addressing the fat pig he said, “There’s a rat trap in the ranch house, a rat trap in the house!” “Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo Mr. Rat,” scolded the hog, “Toughen up. We all die some day. Be assured that you are in my thoughts and prayers.”
The rat turned to the cow and repeated his warning. She said, “Like wowie, Mr. Rat. a rat trap. Excuse me, but isn't that just your little problem? Please go away, your whining offends me.” So the rat thought, "stupid cow, stupid, stupid cow," and returned to the house, head down and dejected to face the rancher's rat trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, very much like the sound of a rat trap trapping its prey. The rancher's wife ran into the room to see what the trap caught. In the darkness, she didn't see that it was a rattlesnake that had been caught. The snake was very angry. Very, very angry. The rattle was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The rancher tried to suck the venom out of the bite. It didn't work--She got worse. The rancher rushed his wife to the hospital. They couldn't do anything for her. It had been too long since she was struck. She returned home with a fever.
Back then in the old days everyone treated a fever with fresh chicken soup, and to do that you had to have a fresh chicken so the rancher took his hatchet to the barnyard for the soup’s main ingredient. It pretty much would have been a bloody frenzy but the rancher just took out the largest one and the survivors all moved up a notch in the pecking order. Dumb cluck.
The rancher's wife's condition continued to worsen. She was delirious and spoke in tongues. Her arms and legs were lashed to the bed posts. Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. The rancher had to feed them. The rancher went out and butchered the arrogant pig that told the rat, "boo-hoo-hoo-hoo." The hog made a delicious pork chop dinner for all and tasty bacon for a breakfast with the last couple of eggs laid by the chicken.
The rancher's wife did not get well. She was in great pain. The pain was excruciating. She had hallucinations. She died hard. Slowly. Many people came for her funeral. There was wailing and moaning and crying and pulling hair and throwing dirt. They were hungry after all that mourning and stuff. So the rancher ordered the emotionally distant cow to be slaughtered and cooked for dinner and a barbecue the next day. The meat was tender and well-streaked and marbled with fat in all the right places. Everyone was going on and on. Melt in your mouth.
The Moral is:
The next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when there is a rat trap in the ranch house, the entire ranch is at risk.
Just Kidding:
This story has no moral. There are no winners here. No one is going to change. This has been pointless.
The rat lived through it all but died of food poisoning from a bad casserole left behind when the rancher left the ranch with his new girlfriend.
Ranching in the Mojave
Desert Queen
China Ranch
Old Woman Springs
Rancho Los Flores
