History
When we, Bridget and George Baumann, purchased this 60-acre farm in 1985, it had been called the Turnip Farm for a number of years. We renamed it after its first settler, the Norwegian August Lofstedt, who had cleared its land at the turn of the century and first farmed it under the name of LOFSTEDT RANCH. Our aim was to create here a BIO-DYNAMIC farm to propagate this high standard organic method of production in British Columbia with the help of like-minded friends, and to eventually help it develop into a socially-inclined Healing Centre with Anthroposophic background.
The run-down old meadows, abandoned for decades, were put back into production and subsequently ploughed up to become fertile grain fields. Later on, garden spaces gradually emerged where fruits, herbs, and vegetables could be grown in small quantity for our own use. This was then expanded to supply a local farmer's market, and gradually also health food stores in Nelson and Vancouver.
Around 1990, we first heard about the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) system, and questioned if we would be able to handle it. Two years later we felt ready and started supplying 25 families with their weekly share of fresh organic produce. Thanks in part to a big root cellar, hewn out of the ground by hand under our old log house, this supply could be continued through almost the whole year. More and more people subscribed over the years, until we reached 80 families in 1997. This proved to be too much for the harmonious balance needed within a Bio-Dynamic farm of this size, so the CSA has now been reduced to approximately 60 families.
Location
Our
farm is situated in a small valley parallel to Kootenay Lake, which is
not visible from the property. It is surrounded by Crown forests (no neighbours!)
and flanked by a scarcely used gravel road. High mountains surround us
and the beautiful Kootenay Lake, and help our climate remain mild in summer
and winter. But it is only 5 km away from the once-important old mining
town of Kaslo, now a small village of 800 souls on the lakeshore. Air,
soil, and water are still practically pollution-free in this little-known
paradise in the Wild West!