Harley Farms is the only dairy farm in San Mateo County, California. Owner Dee Harley marvels at the irony of this truth because, she says, "Up until the 40's there were eleven dairy farms along the coast of Pescadero. Now, Dee has a tremendously successful operation backed by a heart-in-hand philosophy, an ethic driven by sustainability, and strong community involvement.
A U.K. native, Dee is energetic, direct, calm and glowing. She learned cheesemaking years ago from a woman, Nancy Gaffney, further south in California and later she and her husband decided to buy the early 20th century farmhouse in which they now live. They have twenty employees with the head cheesemaker who has been there for sixteen years. This year they will be milking 150 goats, almost double the number from last year. One major change is that they will be milking only once a day. In doing so, "you lose twenty percent of production, but only ten percent of cost," Dee says.
When you step into the unassuming farmhouse you immediately get that feeling that only comes with something that is aged and seasoned, like an old wooden ship. Uneven floors, thick solid beams, and the setup of what used to be an old kitchen.
The walls are painted with goat milk paint made by Dee's local friend who goes by Three-Finger-Bill. It was his idea and he definitely got it right. Flower-adorned chevre rests in baskets below worn window sills that look out onto lush raised garden beds. The vegetables are grown using all goat manure compost (aka "black gold") from the farm. Outside are two huge blue tanks set 8 feet (half way) into the ground. They collect roughly forty thousand gallons of water per year which, last year, sustained the herd of eighty goats for eight months.
The vegetables are used at Dee's farm dinners which go on throughout the year. Don't get too excited yet. They are sold out at a price of $150 pp several months in advance so you've go to be on it. Surely TFL is jealous. Everything you eat at dinner is from the town of Pescadero. The table is made out of a fallen tree from her property, Three-Finger-Bill made the all-wood chairs one by one, and the meats are raised in town. Seriously local.
There is something about Dee's attitude that really seems to be at the core of Harley Farms' success. She welcomes enthusiastic inexperienced people he knows her her cheese is on the high end as goat cheese goes, yet is confident that it will sell (and it does, nearly all of it at the farm). Harley Farms is part of something much bigger in Pescadero. "This community is the backbone to our success without a doubt." Like we have seen in many other places, they are part of a community working hard for themselves and for each other.
