Crystal Peaks Lower Ranch begins to blossom

A little more than a year ago Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch (CPYR) was the recipient of an extraordinary gift. After 18 years of running their program for rescuing at-risk horses and challenged kids from the confines of their nine-acre "cinder pit," a casual visitor purchased the 50-acre working ranch across Innes Market Road from CPYR and donated the ranch to the program.

This unprecedented gesture included an endowment to pay the operating expenses on this working ranch for five years. (See nuggetnews.com December 31, 2013, "Extraordinary gift allows Crystal Peaks to expand" for details.)

CPYR's internationally recognized and widely acclaimed program uses rescued horses to enhance the lives of at-risk kids through their own unique version of "horse therapy." The 90-minute one-on-one weekly lessons are given at no charge to kids with a wide variety of backgrounds and ages. Lessons are given four days a week during the riding season, from May through October.

Some kids don't elect to ride on any given visit. These kids often play games, work in the woodshop or help maintain the garden. During each visit, the child and their instructor also commit to complete a chore as part of the daily operation of the ranch.

The regular lesson routine will still be located at what is now referred to as the "upper ranch." The additional acreage of the lower ranch is allowing CPYR to expand their outreach in entirely new directions.

Although the CPYR one-on-one model is unique in the United States, CPYR conducts week-long trainings and provides consulting and setup advice to more than 100 similar efforts throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Many of these similar programs send their people to CPYR for training. These training seminars often draw more than 100 participants. Until now, all these folks were packed into the original small 36-by-48-foot CPYR barn, which has since been converted to a meeting and fellowship hall.

Co-owners Troy and Kim Meeder are in the process of converting the large dairy/horse barn on the new lower ranch property into a full-sized meeting hall. The renovated facility will have a large "living room" at one end, with couches and chairs and a large fireplace and eating table. The balance of the hall is being turned into a cozy modular meeting hall, for large and small group meetings and training.

The large ranch house on the property is now the home of Scott and Josie Gwin and their four kids. Scott is foreman on the lower ranch. Both he and Josie are instructors in the upper ranch youth program where Josie is also the volunteer coordinator. Like many of the staff, the Gwins had their own similar program before coming to CPYR from Colorado in 2012.

Across the road from the meeting hall and slightly down the hill from the Gwins' home there will be a large outdoor meeting area, complete with large fire and barbecue pits and an outdoor performance stage. This area is protected from the persistent northwest wind by the fully outfitted shop and large indoor riding arena.

The plans for the riding arena are still in limbo.

As a working ranch, the lower acreage has excellent and abundant water, good topsoil, and is relatively flat. The irrigated 25-acre pasture is already producing 100 tons of hay per year. Combining this production with the many hay donations to the ranch will allow CPYR to meet their own needs of 140 tons per year and still allow them to donate 70 tons of feed to the sister programs and horse families in need that they support.

Kim Meeder has also been gifted a 1930s railroad boxcar made with beautiful woodwork. The boxcar will form the basis of a temporary residence/campout facility where volunteers and trainees can stay and relax. The views of the lower pastures and the Cascades from this out-of-the way piece of the ranch are spectacular. Kim's vision is to "un-wire" visitors, staff and clients to allow them to soak in the natural beauty of the lower ranch environs without the distractions of cell phones and computers - a "real ranch experience" like the one she grew up in is what she wants to share.

Just beyond the hay pastures at the southern end of the ranch, staff has planted a 200-plus tree orchard and a five-acre garden. Like so many of the gifts bestowed on this storied program, someone at a wholesale nursery in the valley heard of CPYR's program and offered to sell the ranch over 100 bare-root apple trees for a dollar each. Similar gifts have resulted in acres of commercial blueberry bushes as well as pear, cherry, peach and plum trees.

A previously unknown natural spring is now watering the orchard and gardens in what for years was the dump for the ranch. It was the area where manure and bark shavings from the stalls were dumped and ultimately worked into the soil.

A contractor hired to dig out a lower pond/reservoir in turn donated the digging of a root cellar. A canning shed has been built over the root cellar. It is the Meeders' vision that those in need, and those with an interest in free fresh food, will be able to come to the ranch, and work the gardens, then leave with fresh and canned vegetables as a result of their own efforts. They literally want to "feed the masses."

All this ranching activity still leaves plenty of room for large corrals where horses can come to recuperate, heal, and get a break from the kids once in a while.