Milk in glass bottles, delivered: Calder Dairy
The Calder family dairy near Carleton has bottled milk in glass and run home delivery since 1946, and welcomes families out to the farm.
Some things you assume vanished decades ago are alive and well on Finzel Road. Calder Dairy was founded in 1946, when William Calder came home from the war and put his service bonus into a delivery truck. It still does it the old way. Milk from its own herd is pasteurized, bottled in heavy glass, and delivered to porches across southeast Michigan. The farm store sells it too, next to chocolate milk people drive an hour for and ice cream made on site.
The farm itself is half the charm, set in the countryside where Ash and Exeter townships meet. Families come out year-round to see the milking herd, the calves, and an honest barnyard’s worth of animals. It’s less a tourist attraction than a working farm that never stopped being neighborly. For anyone settling around Carleton or Maybee, put it on the short list of local privileges. Your milkman still exists, and you can go meet his cows.
Where to see it
Calder Dairy's farm store on Finzel Road near Carleton; the farm welcomes visitors to meet the cows most days.