MIKE AND SALLY GALE are the owners and inhabitants, but perhaps more importantly, the caregivers and preservers of the historic Chileno Valley Ranch near Petaluma, California. What began in 1993 as a massive restoration project of the ranch that had been in Sally’s family since 1862 has now become the home of several ranch-based businesses operated by the Gales.
Sally was raised in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where her dad was in the forest service, and the Gales raised their children in Hawaii. Although engaged in careers completely apart from agriculture, they have taken quite naturally to their lifestyle as full-time ranchers of the 600-acre spread that runs along the Chileno Creek.
About 100 head of Angus cows roam the ranch. In 1999, Mike and Sally sold their first load of beef through a traditional beef broker but soon decided that they were more comfortable raising the animals from birth to harvest on the ranch, rather than shipping live cattle off the farm for processing. This way, the Gales believe that they reduce their animals’ stress levels by not making them take a long truck ride just before slaughter. They began direct-marketing beef animals and by 2000, Chileno Natural Beef was born. Now about 70 head are sold each year to customers around the state of California.
“We make twice as much money selling direct rather than selling to a feed lot. There is more risk, and we keep the animals longer, but it pays off in the end,” Sally says, noting that customers often come to them by searching the Internet. Most customers are looking for specific things, such as grass-fed, humane treatment, and animals that aren’t stressed during long truck rides from farm to feedlot. To better serve their customers, as well as themselves, the Gales helped to establish grass-fed beef standards for Marin County, where they live.
The ranch is USDA-certified organic; however, the cattle are not, simply because animal health concerns in their area merit parasite treatments not permitted in the National Organic Program. “We do treat for parasites and the customer seems to appreciate that we do that,” Mike says, adding that the cattle are raised without added hormones.
While raising natural beef has become common throughout the country, Mike and Sally’s approach is different from the rest. “I don’t know of anyone else doing this the way we do,” Mike says with pride. The animals are pre-sold in January to customers who may purchase a split-quarter, a half, or the whole animal, and then the animals are harvested May through October. All animals are slaughtered on the ranch by a man who does custom harvesting of beef. After slaughter, the beef are trucked to a nearby butcher shop where the meat is aged 14 days, then cut and packaged. The customer picks up his or her meat directly from the butcher shop.
The Gales never touch the finished product and don’t have to worry about marketing all parts of the beef animal; the customer gets everything from high-end filets to soup bones. “We could possibly get more if we sold beef cuts, but we like doing it in this niche,” Sally explains. “People really need to find their own niches and work out the wrinkles. This works for us; we always sell out and we cannot satisfy the market.”
While the butcher shop is a state-inspected facility, the Gales’ ranch is not. They are able to comply with state inspection standards and regulations because on-farm slaughter is allowed for personal use. When the customer (or customers) purchases the live animal in advance of slaughter, that customer now owns the animal and the Gales act as their agent, simply allowing slaughter to take place on their farm for the (new) owner’s personal use.
Sally Gale’s great-great-grandfather, Charles Martin, bought the ranch in 1862. In 1883, he built an Italianate addition to the ranch house. A century later, this once-grand house was in ruins (visit the Chileno Valley Ranch Web site to view the dramatic before and after photos). Contractors advised the Gales to tear down the house, but for emotional reasons, they instead decided to restore this piece of Sally’s heritage.
The rebuilding effort at the outset wasn’t intended to lead to a growing business. “When we started rebuilding the ranch six years ago, we weren’t so much interested in growth; we wanted to maintain the ranch,” Sally Gale says. A bed and breakfast seemed like a good use of the large house however, and after countless hours of hard work restoring the Italianate Victorian ranch home, the Gales were able to open a bed and breakfast in 1998. “We realized when we started to restore this house that the kids [their three grown children] wouldn’t be back to live and this house seemed too big for two people. We realized the B and B had to be a destination idea and also that for many people the opportunity to stay in a restored Victorian was a draw,” Mike recalls.
The Gales had no more experience operating a bed and breakfast than they did running a ranch, but that didn’t deter them. “We had friends in the B and B business and they agreed to refer their overflow guests to us. It actually started even before the last room was completed,” Mike says of their foray into the bed and breakfast business.
Mike Gale looks at ease in the foreground of one of the pastures on his 600-acre spread, where about 100 head of Angus cattle roam.
The refreshing sight of fruit trees at bud break greets visitors and residents alike at Chileno Valley Ranch every spring.
For eight years, the bed and breakfast was a tourist destination for people from Silicon Valley who wanted to escape the city and enjoy the outdoors. At first the B and B was profitable; Mike recalled one month where they made over $8,000 just on the four rooms and one cottage that housed guests seasonally each year. “One attraction for us was young, affluent couples with children. They could use the cottage and have privacy while the family didn’t disturb other guests,” Mike explains. Overall, people came to the bed and breakfast for diverse reasons; some people were just passing through and others came to be on the ranch.
By the early years of the twenty-first century, the economic climate began to change, causing Mike and Sally’s occupancy rates to decline and their patience to wane. “When the dot-com bubble burst, this became a much different business. People from the south just didn’t come up for weekends away as much — in fact, many of those people just left California,” Mike remembers.
The Gales slowly realized that their B and B lifestyle was coming to an end, for a variety of reasons. They missed many of the activities they were involved with on weekends before the B and B days, and both Mike and Sally wanted more freedom to visit with aging parents and new grandchildren as they arrived.
As October 2005 approached, Mike and Sally decided to close the bed and breakfast and forgo plans to reopen in the spring. “We were actually relieved when we didn’t have to open in the spring; in a way the B and B had run it’s course,” Mike said.
Sally’s efforts to restore the ranch continue, however. Sally is working on the restoration of the bed of the Chileno Creek, which runs through their operation. “We’ve fenced off the creek from the cows and planted native trees. We’ve been able to use grant money aimed at improving natural habitat,” Sally notes proudly.
During their time as ranchers and bed and breakfast owners, the Gales continued to diversify. Orchards were added to the property by the winter of 2000. The Gales originally planted many types of fruit trees that they liked, but when only apples and pears lived, they learned what worked and what didn’t. Now the ranch boasts more than 300 semi-dwarf apple trees and about 50 pear trees, from which customers can pick their own fruit in the fall. Their apples are also sold through several farmers’ markets and stores in the area.
While the bed and breakfast does not operate daily, it’s hardly closed for good. Mike and Sally have found yet another niche that works well for them: weddings and hosting art events. Sally has an interest in art, and is a Plein Air painter herself. The extensive natural landscape of the ranch is a good location for Plein Air workshops, where people come to paint outdoors. “Art workshops are a substitute for the full-time B and B. We’ve got 16 students and a teacher here right now,” Mike says with a laugh, noting that during our conversation the group was gone on an all-day field trip, leaving him with a bit of appreciated peace and quiet.
In 2007, five weddings were held on the ranch. Mike and Sally like weddings because all of the rooms must be booked, as well as the barn (for receptions). They don’t even have to do the cooking because people hire their own caterers. And because weddings are booked far in advance, they know what their schedule is for the week and can leave to visit the grandkids if they are free. While the fit is great, hosting weddings wasn’t even something the couple planned to do. “It happened as a segue; it wasn’t really an epiphany — people just wanted to get married here,” Mike notes.
It would seem as though the Gales have more than enough to keep them busy, but they didn’t diversify into everything at once. “It’s important not to [start out with too many things]. You may have a vision, but you need to know the lay of the land and learn things, like what everybody else has done and failed at,” Mike says.
The Gales like hosting events and plan to continue making the business work for them. Next year, weddings and workshops will be limited to an even shorter period of the year — just May and June — due to a desire for more freedom, and because natural limitations can sometimes stretch the ranch. “This is partly due to our climate,” Mike explains. “We have water here in the spring. I don’t know what we’ll have (for water resources) by September and October.”
Living a satisfying life is about finding balance, an enigma that doesn’t seem to elude the Gales any longer. Besides working on the ranch, they fill their hours with political and social activities in their county. Mike serves as president of the Marin County Farm Bureau while Sally is a director of the Resource Conservation District. “We’re about maintaining and expanding the operation, but not exponentially!” Mike says emphatically.
Their particular combination of activities is working for Mike and Sally, and while business ebbs and flows, Mike is comfortable with their commitment to marketing and selling top-quality goods and services to the consumer. “The only way to survive is direct-market. Customer-driven, niche marketing is the way to go” he says. As life changes fast on the ranch, one thing remains certain: because of the Gales’ commitment, Chileno Valley Ranch will endure.
Mike and Sally’s Tips for a Successful First Year
• Don’t become involved in too many enterprises at once; start to diversify into more ventures over time.
• Take time to research other people’s successes and mistakes; learn to identify and avoid the things that may not work in your home area.
• Find your own niche and do what you do well.
• Involve yourself in what you believe in.
