Our property is located just north of Joshua Tree National Park. From the property, we look past a lone Joshua tree (photo at left) southwest towards Mt. San Jacinto on the far horizon. More to the west (right of the photo), we look towards Mt. San Gorgonio; and more to the south (left of the photo), we look across the town of Joshua Tree.

We are actually closer to Joshua Tree Town than this image suggests. We are only three blocks from a paved road, and only a few miles north of the main highway through town. We have water and telephone lines, but no connections. Power is about 900 feet away at the nearest neighbor's house.

The land slopes gradually down to the east, but it is essentially flat. The soil is deep sandy gravel, formed from decomposed quartz-monzanite granite. The few small rocks on the property are piled up for an old fire ring. There are no washes anywhere near, but sheet erosion occurs throughout the area.

Vegetation is typical of the Mojave Desert Scrub habitat type with about 20% ground cover. The main shrubs include creosote bush, white bursage, and Mojave yucca. Other common plants include desert trumpet, littleleaf ratany, rayless encelia, Bristly Fiddleneck, Red Brome Grass, and desert senna.

We have seen few animals on the property. We have seen House Finches, Mourning Doves, Sage Sparrows, Horned Larks, Common Ravens, and others. We have not put very much effort into figuring out which birds occur there. As for reptiles, we have only seen Side-blotched Lizards and Western Whiptail Lizards. We have also seen tracks of Sidewinders on the dirt road. We have at least two species of small mammals, Merriam's Kangaroo Rats and Little Pocket Mice (Perognathus longimembris), and Coyotes are common. Undoubtedly, many other vertebrate species occur here.