Peake strolls through the barn, a collection of golden Guernsey eyes following him as he goes.
For the past year, Ron Garthwaite has been getting up with the chickens, as it were, to milk the cows at the Claravale Guernsey Farm in Monte Sereno. Both Garthwaite and Kenneth Peake, who has owned and operated the dairy in Monte Sereno since 1931, start their work day at 4 a.m.
"It's the same morning and evening: milking, bottling and selling," Garthwaite says. "We deal all day with customers who come up to buy the milk. About once a month, there's a birth or a cow that needs to be impregnated."
Since the dairy boasts only one bull for its 25 cows, most pregnancies occur by artificial insemination. Garthwaite and Peake order bull semen through a catalogue and store vials of it in liquid nitrogen for later use.
"The bull's just there in case one of the cows has trouble getting pregnant," Garthwaite says.
Breeding by artificial insemination is about as high-tech as this dairy gets. Most of Peake's equipment is as old as the dairy itself. Garthwaite, a former geneticist, says he's attracted to this old-fashioned approach to dairy farming.
"I'm more interested in the history of dairy operations [than in genetics]," he adds. "I was told to come up and see Mr. Peake because he was still doing things like he did in the 1930s."
The Claravale Guernsey Farm is one of two dairies licensed in California to sell raw milk. The other dairy, Altadena in Southern California, is much larger in scale. Garthwaite says he prefers Peake's more intimate Bicknell Road setting.
"Dairying today isn't so much about farming as it is about technology," he says. "They put implants in cows and feed and milk them by computer. We treat them like they did in the old days, when there was more appreciation for livestock as living creatures.
"The fun part about the dairy is dealing with the cows," Garthwaite adds. "I find the relationship between cows and humans to be very special."
Garthwaite says the people who buy Claravale's raw milk like the fact that the product is virtually unprocessed and that it comes from animals that are treated humanely. Expanding that customer base, he adds, is an essential part of his plan to pull the dairy out of debt.
"It's really amazing that Mr. Peake has been able to keep it going this long," Garthwaite says. "Until now, he hasn't had to run the dairy as a money-making operation."
Peake has been operating on a deficit for some time and is looking to sell two of his three acres. The city of Monte Sereno is considering purchasing an option to buy the land in order to stave off residential developers. Meanwhile, Garthwaite is negotiating a lease agreement with the Dairy Preservation Committee and is willing to operate the dairy until a buyer is found.
While Garthwaite says he'll need to make a lot of changes to turn the dairy into a profitable business, he adds that his primary focus would be on marketing Claravale's product to stores and farmers' markets. Right now, there's not even a sign posted at the dairy to let visitors know that raw milk is for sale there.
"You can come to the door and not know that there's something here you can buy," Garthwaite says.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, March 6, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved