Windhorse Farm, now owned and operated by Jim and Margaret Drescher, builds on the rich 150-year history of the Wentzell family's stewardship of this forest and farm in the LaHave River Watershed at Wentzell Lake in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Founded in 1840, this is the longest-standing demonstration of sustainable forestry in Canada.

Today Windhorse Farm is the home of five for-profit businesses demonstrating the economic practicality of ecologically protective stewardship practices. Windhorse Education Foundation, a charitable society, is responsible for education and training programs in earth stewardship. It is as an "earth stewardship training centre" that Windhorse Farm is best known. More than a thousand young people from at least ten countries have lived and learned here over the past 20 years - as students, interns, apprentices and resident trainees. Many of these people have gone on to do environmentally and socially beneficial earth stewardship work in Canada and other countries.

Earth stewardship, as it is practiced and presented at Windhorse Farm, is based on fundamental human goodness and caring for all living beings. Arising naturally from that genuine caring, open-minded curiosity leads to investigation of how other beings, both human and non-human, are harmed or benefited by how we conduct our lives. Encouraging this curiosity and spirit of investigation, rather than "teaching" any environmentalist or spiritual viewpoint, is what directs the earth stewardship training at Windhorse Farm.

The programs include opportunities for enhancing our appreciation of the beauty and magic of the rural landscape through opening our senses, silent forest wandering and stillness practice. Equally important is hands-on training in basic sustainability skills in forestry, agriculture and energy generation and conservation. This combination of contemplative practice and training in hard skills is one of the things for which Windhorse Farm is best known.

The businesses which operate here include an organic market garden and orchard, a native plant nursery, two wood products manufacturing businesses, and the management of facilities providing overnight accommodation for program participants, visitors, and farm vacationers. These businesses are demonstrations of how to bring the theory of earth stewardship "down to earth". In addition to their demonstration and training value, these businesses provide valued employment for members of the local community.

The aspiration of all of us at Windhorse Farm is to encourage and nurture truly sustainable and peaceful rural communities in the Maritimes and beyond. Our work is directed toward realizing that aspiration.