Category: Happenings

Sweet Pepper Ranch is about adventures and adventures can come in all shapes and sizes. You might be planning a family move with your horse in tow, searching for an appropriate overnight stop. You might be looking for a horsey vacation get-away with girlfriends. Or you might just be traveling with your dog (we are pet friendly) and would like an overnight stay in a beautiful, relaxing ranch location. You might also be a horse person looking for a place to come ride (your horse or our seasoned show horses) and expand your riding and horsemanship skills. Or maybe you want to learn about training mustangs. Or even learn about eco-friendly horse keeping, like mud/drainage management, composting and manure management options, and pasture management. If any of this sounds like you, Sweet Pepper Ranch has a lot to offer! We are a small-scale, conservation-minded horse facility that does boarding, training and lessons. We also have a horse motel for those traveling with horses and a bed and breakfast for humans. Scroll down on this page for more information on the eco-sensitive horse keeping practices we showcase here. If you are yearning for an adult-version of horse camp check out our Sweet Pepper Ranch Cowgirl Retreats. We offer then twice yearly (2020 dates: June 11 – 14 and August 27 – 30) and they are PACKED with adventures and fun – ranch riding instruction in the mornings and then educational lectures, local tours, entertainment, activities, and demos for the balance of the day. Includes yoga, meditation, gourmet meals and… relaxing pool time with new friends. If you are ready for a learning/self-care/horsey adventure, then Sweet Pepper Ranch Cowgirl Retreats are for you! NEWSBREAK: This year our August retreat includes men – by popular request! A deposit is all you need to secure your spot and get you started on your adventure goals. Perhaps your adventures include setting horsemanship goals for the year. Matt Livengood, Sweet Pepper Ranch’s trainer/clinician, recently did just that with his riding clients and shares a few thoughts on how to have realistic, attainable goals here. We’ve got lots of clinics lined up at Sweet Pepper Ranch (check us out on Facebook, too). Matt and I are both involved with the Idaho Horse Expo this year, April 10 – 12, which is brimming with educational opportunities and promises to be a fun, dynamic opportunity for all. All for a $10 entry fee, too! Maybe your 2020 adventures include improvements to your horse property. If you are looking for that and ways to provide enrichment opportunities for your horse Horses for Clean Water, my business, can help! We have workshops and online classes coming up which offer innovative approaches to horse keeping — from track paddocks and slow feeders to building a pollinator hedgerow and installing owl boxes. Check out the education schedule to get you started on those adventures. Let 2020 be for adventures and let us at Sweet Pepper Ranch know how we can help! See you out on the trails! Alayne Blickle 206-909-0225 alayne@horsesforcleanwater.com    

Hello! Thank you for taking time to check out Sweet Pepper Ranch and let me share with you a little bit about our place. Named in memory of a family-favorite horse of ours who was loved by all, Sweet Pepper Ranch is a small-scale personalized guest ranch in the high desert of southwestern Idaho. We raise Western horses and grass hay as well as work hard every day to run the day-to-day aspects of our eco-friendly horse keeping operation. Some of the environmentally-sensitive components we showcase include: pollinator hedgerow for native pollinating insects drought-tolerant native landscaping pasture management and rotational grazing manure composting in cement bins mud and dust control in paddocks and high traffic areas a track paddock for horses, landscaped with native plants an irrigation ditch planted and maintained like a healthy creek Some of the horse-friendly management techniques we used in the design of our place include: all stalls have outdoor pens so horses can move freely with excellent ventilation rubber stall mats for cushioning corner feeders which allow horses to eat with heads lowered while not feeding in dirt or sand pesticide-free fly control rodent control through encouraging barn owls and kestrels We offer many programs at Sweet Pepper Ranch from training, lessons, and boarding to a bio-secure overnight horse motel to Cowgirl Retreats. This brief video (done by a local TV station) introduces you to Sweet Pepper Ranch. Our overnight horse motel B&B is for both horses and people and offers a relaxing, convenient place to overnight. We have bio-secure stalling keeps overnight guest horses separate from other horses here. Plus we have two guest rooms in our house for human travelers. Guests enjoy our solar heated pool, outdoor patio and grill, wireless internet, and healthy, continental breakfasts. We have two private guest bedrooms inside which share a bathroom–plus, we have a cowgirl-chic glamping tent outside. Sleep peacefully while listening to your horse munching hay and barn owls calling overhead. Our Sweet Pepper Ranch Cowgirl Retreat, next offered in June 2019, is a long weekend get-away for committed women riders and their horses. Retreats feature either ranch riding or cowboy dressage along with yoga, and meditation–plus gourmet healthy meals, afternoon lectures, pool side relaxing, and evening movie time. Join us for an adult horse camp of learning, relaxing, and horse’n around in a fun, supportive environment. Horse facilities include individual paddocks with attached runs (12’ x 52’), automatic waterers, feeders and rubber stall mats, a 200′ x 300′ outdoor sand arena, a 72’ x 120’ indoor arena, two round pens (one large), numerous trail obstacles, an outdoor washrack, as well as parking, porta-potty, arena bleachers, and picnic table areas. Nearby activities abound from visiting rodeos and wineries to trail riding at sunset near waterfalls or hiking painted desert canyons. There are wildlife refuges to visit, hot springs to relax in, wilderness mountains to explore, scenic rivers to raft, railways to travel along–and North America’s largest concentration of breeding raptors to dazzle you. Join us at Sweet Pepper Ranch! Learn more by contacting me at Alayne@horsesforcleanwater.com. See you down the road! Alayne

Now is prime time to begin dreaming up plans for next summer’s vacation – let Matt and Alayne at Sweet Pepper Ranch help you with that. Bring your horses and come for a high desert getaway, be it a few days or a week. Or ride one of our well-trained reining horses. Or just come enjoy the beautiful high desert area and all of the diverse opportunities—from rural, agricultural to desert mountains and wild horses! Sweet Pepper Ranch is gearing up for next summer’s fun. Recent additions and new plans for Sweet Pepper Ranch include: An improved trail course which bridges, hills, ditches, obstacles, tires, gates and more! Two new, large turn-out areas for horses. New gardens with raised beds—for yummy meals. A solar heated swimming pool—a warmer pool earlier in the year! Horse shoe pit for downtime. The fire pit means relaxing at night under the stars is always a great plan. Also available for corporate retreats or other special occasions offering a beautiful outdoor ranch setting. At Sweet Pepper Ranch we offer the following: Cowgirl/Cowboy Getaways—come for a long weekend or a week! Bed & Breakfast Work & Learn opportunities Horse Motel—traveling with equines? We can accommodate up to 10 or more horses/evening Trail rides and gourmet trail rides Venue for dinners, corporate trainings or other special occasions offering a beautiful outdoor ranch setting and opportunities to involve our horses Want more details? Cowgirl (& Cowboy!) Weekend Getaways Welcome to horse camp for adults! Arrive on a Thursday, leave on a Sunday—three nights and two full days of riding, relaxing, learning, visiting and enjoying good food and good company. Bring your horse or ride one of our well-trained reining horses. If you are here on the Cowgirl/Cowboy Getaway, we usually assign guests their “own” horse, one of the well-trained Sweet Pepper Ranch reining horses, for your stay here. Depending on your interests and abilities you can participate in their care and feeding as well as other ranch activities, such as bucking hay, mowing fields, harrowing or other tasks. Experience a bit of ranching by observing some of the work that goes on from haying, cleaning stalls and paddocks, harrowing arenas, mowing fields, turning out horses, building shelters and fences or irrigating pasture to name just a few chores. During the day you can relax with a swim in the pool or by night sit at our fire pit and listen to the howl of coyotes while watching stars twinkle. Pitch in to experience ranching responsibilities which might include haying, cleaning stalls and paddocks, harrowing arenas, mowing fields, turning out horses, building shelters and fences or irrigating pasture to name just a few. Relax with a swim in the pool or by night sit at our fire pit and listen to the howl of coyotes while watching stars twinkle. Horses & riding Depending on what you would like we can ride once or twice a day. We have three guest horses for trail rides. We can arrange for you to work cows. We have a trail course on our property and a few other fun things like horse soccer (a big ball that you kick around while horseback.) We will have ranch chores for you and your own assigned horses for you to care for. Dates  Please inquire as to dates and availability. Cowgirl Weekend Getaways are usually Thursday to Sunday, but we are flexible so if that timeframe doesn’t work, suggest something and we’ll do our best to accommodate. Numbers We have beds for 5 people (2 double beds & one single.) When we have extras we can either set up an air mattress in a room (crowded, probably best for kids) or we set up a nice tent outside by the pool with cots & camping furniture. Trail Rides & Gourmet Trail Rides Enjoy a trail ride on one of our highly trained and experienced reining horses. Tour sights and scenes from the Old West which include may viewing raptors or coyotes, ancient geology and petroglyphs, desert plants or other interesting natural history. Gourmet Trail Ride—ditto above but add in a relaxing picnic spread either during or after your ride! Here are some of the trails we can take you: Celebration Park a is beautiful desert park along the Snake River with petroglyphs, raptors, gold miners’ old rock cabins, a lake and waterfall—lots of history and beautiful scenery. Wilson Creek in the Owyhee Mountains has thousands and thousands of acres of BLM land, as well as wild horses (BLM mustangs) which live there. Kuna Butte is a great local spot to go for an evening trail ride and watch the sun set. All of the riding destinations listed on the Sweet Pepper Ranch website are wonderful and unique. Bed & Breakfast Traveling through the area—with or with your horse? We have to guest rooms available, with a shared bath. The Northwest Room, with décor from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest, has a large comfy Queen bed. The Country Room has a double bed with a single day bed and a desk. WiFi and pool are available to overnight guests. Ranch breakfasts are usually served pool-side and include special egg dishes, pastries, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, juice. We also have a refrigerator for guests, so if you want to make your own lunches or keep some cold drinks on hand you are welcomed to use it. Check out the amenities here. Area Restaurants Local restaurants are wonderful and many use locally grown, sustainable produce. A few close by that we like to recommend include: Brick 29 Bistro which uses local produce and has live music on M, Tu & Wed evenings. Copper Canyon has fabulous food and is located on a golf course. If you like sushi, you’ll LOVE Simple Sushi—fresh, beautiful and delicious! Looking for something quick and easy? Messenger Pizza offers a campy, fun atmosphere with gourmet pizza by the slice. Folks travel from all over SW Idaho to go to El Gallo Giro which is...

It’s not too early to start planning and thinking about next year. With the holidays coming up, think about giving the gift of an experience—or adding a visit to Sweet Pepper Ranch to your own “wish list!” There are many different ways you can experience Sweet Pepper Ranch: as a small-scale personalized guest ranch, an overnight bed and breakfast or as a horse motel. Bring your own horse or ride one of our kind, highly trained reining horses. Come for a Cowgirl Weekend Getaway—or stay for a week of adventures. Check out the website to see lots of smiles from past guests —be sure to all the way scroll down! Suggested dates and themes are listed on the website, but you are welcomed to come up with your own dates and ideas. Peruse our website for photos and ideas that lift your spirit. Let us know what interests you and we’ll do the rest. Upon your arrival we’ll have your curriculum planned for you, all you do is enjoy. Do you like rodeos? Herding dog trials? Street fairs? Vineyards and wine tasting? Breweries? Nice restaurants? Basque or Mexican food? Train rides? Golf? Rafting or fishing? Birding? Would you like to ride through the desert with its beautiful muted pallet of colors and interesting rock formations? Or maybe a trailride with the cool mountain breeze and whisper of evergreens? Tell us your dreams and we’ll do our best to make it happen. One truly unique and relaxing nearby activity you can enjoy while staying at Sweet Pepper Ranch is a farm-to-fork dinner, such as ones held at Peaceful Belly Farm, an ecologically sustainable urban farm featuring certified organic produce. Enjoy a spectacular meal paired with local wines in the most exhilarating of outdoor settings. And don’t forget riding—opportunities are endless here, whether it’s a moonlight trail ride or a ride to see wild horses, we got you covered in a fun, safe “horse camp” atmosphere tailored for adults. We also offer work/study opportunities for folks who want to learn green horse keeping.  And for horsey folks traveling through the area, we have a safe, convenient place to spend the night for both horse and owner—and pets! Carve out some special time for you and friends or family for next sumer next year and start dreaming! Alayne and Matt

December 2011 at Sweet Pepper Ranch This past summer was the most amazing summer of my life—four months of sunny, dry weather!  After  25 years in Western Washington, this is a pretty dramatic weather change living here in Southwestern Idaho. I’ve had to learn to relax and not look over my shoulder wondering if tomorrow will bring clouds and rain. It’s exhilarating to go about outside life each day enjoying it, not worrying that it may be the last nice weather day for a while. If you’re familiar with Horses for Clean Water, you’re probably familiar with our farm tours. Well, after 20+ years (wow—that’s a long time, eh?) I’m gearing up for the ultimate farm tour, one where folks come to visit me and stay at our place, Sweet Pepper Ranch.  We’re becoming part of agri-tourism with our new guest ranch and horse motel. In case agri-tourism is a new word for you, allow me to explain: agri-tourism is an agriculturally-based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch. Our vision for Sweet Pepper Ranch also has ecotourism or geotourism principals which extend tourism to incorporate nature, ecology and sustainability, focusing on a place as a whole and celebrating the land and the culture of a region. These varieties of tourism focus on being low-impact and are a small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism. So how ‘bout a brief, virtual farm tour of Sweet Pepper Ranch? You can follow along on our website, www.SweetPepperRanch.com.  Inside our modest ranch house we have guest rooms with large windows and ceiling fans (our high mountain desert climate cools off nicely at night!) decorated with real western art, log furniture and a fireplace for chasing away winter chills. Outside there’s a pool for cooling off on hot summer days and a fire pit with benches for star gazing at night. And speaking of stars—there are so many here it’s mind-boggling! You’ll be amazed to see what getting away from the bright lights of the big cities can show you. The agricultural community around us is fun to explore and has lots of food to offer—we’ve found we can find organic and locally produced ingredients for our guests’ meals right in our own neighborhood. I should be sure to mention that our horses are doing well in their big barn with sand paddocks, enjoying the high desert life. All of them (except RB who’s retired now) get ridden regularly in our 250′ x 150′ outdoor arena and 66′ round pen.  During the summer Matt and I ride three to six horses daily. The dogs, Rikki and Saylee, love the trail rides where they can run to their hearts’ content, exploring rivers and mountains. We’re surrounded by BLM land, so trail riding opportunities are endless and  just a short trailer ride away.  The names of our favorite riding places are reminiscent of the Old West: Sinker Creek, Kuna Butte, Wilson Creek and Celebration Park, just to name a few. Around the ranch we’re working on green projects like weed removal (ugh—green removal means long hours of pulling weeds by hand!) and gopher control by encouraging rodent-eating wildlife like barn owls and kestrels. We’re excited to have a barn owl box in place now (it looks like a dog house up on a pole!) There’s more non-toxic insect control with bats (a bat box) and swallows (several swallow nest boxes). We’re also still using fly predators; stingless nocturnal beneficial wasps that seek out and destroy fly larvae by laying their eggs in them.  We’ve begun to establish dust and erosion control by reseeding bare, dryland areas with native grasses and flowers. For mud control we’re planting along slopes to help “slow the flow” of rainwater during  winter storm events. Our burgeoning native hedgerow greets visitors as they drive through our front gate. We hope this area and other plantings we’ve done will attract local wildlife like quail, raptors, foxes, marmots, rabbits and a host of small critters. We raise our own grass hay using only compost and good pasture management techniques like rotational grazing. This year, our first full year of haying, we got three cuttings, about seven tons total off of our six-acre hay field. So what’s in a day’s work for us? Well, besides our “day jobs” we ride eight horses, mow pastures, irrigate, install new fencing for confinement areas, continue to finish the inside of the barn, build new shelters, install footing in paddocks… visitors are always welcome to  to pitch in with any of these chores! We’ve done lots of planning and have many fun ideas in place for entertaining our guests—from visiting rodeos and wineries to trail rides at sunset near waterfalls or across high deserts. There are wildlife refuges to visit, hot springs to relax in, wilderness mountains to hike, scenic rivers to raft, railways to travel along—and so much more.  Our location boasts North America’s largest concentration of breeding raptors, so don’t forget to bring your binoculars! For those of you just passin’ through—don’t forget our horse motel and short-term boarding. We also offer a B&B for those looking for a nice place to sleep and a ranch breakfast. Our 2012 Cowgirl Weekend Getaway dates are posted (cowboys welcome, too!) with their suggested themes. Photos of this year’s guests are up (be sure to scroll all the way down!) We’re brimming with ideas and can’t wait for you to join us in 2012 at Sweet Pepper Ranch in sunny Southwestern Idaho for your ultimate farm tour. For now we wish you all Happy Holidays and may your coming year be filled with wonder and be touched by peace. Alayne & Matt

Join us this year and take advantage of our special introductory rates. Sweet Pepper Ranch, located in the Treasure Valley of southwestern Idaho, is an unpretentious, “green” horse keeping operation. We raise reining horses and grass hay and work hard every day to exercise and train our horses as well as run the day-to-day aspects of an environmentally sensitive ranch. The Treasure Valley, part of the larger Snake River Valley, experiences the wonderful high desert climate of hot, dry days and cool evenings—perfect for riding, swimming and enjoying the outdoors! Sweet Pepper Ranch offers a guest ranch and horse motel B&B. Traveling through the area? You and your horse have a safe, convenient place to spend the night (dogs are welcomed, too.) If you are looking for a vacation spot with your horse, we can be that! Maybe you’d like to work on a ranch and learn about green horse keeping practices? Then Sweet Pepper Ranch is for you! Our Cowgirl Weekend Getaways are a feature we offer in the summertime which include a unique, tailor-made horse adventure for you—bring your horse or ride one of our well-trained reining horses at a “horse camp” just for adults. We look forward to having you and your horse visit us!