Laura-Jane Koers started blogging in 2001 when the practice of writing personal stories on the web was still called journaling. She describes it as a ‘social outlet for a socially awkward girl’. The practice served her well, and now Canada Blog Friends is proud to present her portal as the most sophisticated blog on the index.

Whimfield, Modern Pre-Industrial Living is an online magazine quality niche blog that’s the work of one female genius. The portal centers on a 100-year-old farmhouse on 63 acres of field, forest, and streams, located in a small community outside of Montague, on Prince Edward Island. The stories are written by a girl who emigrated to PEI from British Columbia, with her boyfriend Cameron. It’s a 100% original ‘lifestyle content’ blog that paints the perfect picture of a beautiful young couple, very much in love, enjoying a modern pre-industrial life in rural paradise. They have no modern appliances, except an old tractor, and so they conserve and enjoy the goodness of nature in a manner similar to the pioneers.

What’s most intriguing, is that both Laura-Jane and Cameron work in technology. They run a web marketing and web project management business called Brightflock, and Cameron also has a web application development company called Kibo Software. Follow Laura-Jane on Twitter @ljbrightflock Here are two smart people, and their love story is their most compelling component of their all natural lifestyle.

Cameron Lerch is a lucky guy, and his life is chronicled in hundreds of photographs, anecdotes and poems; indeed most of his thoughtfulness gets recorded online. One of the most popular posts on Whimfield is the long version of how they met. The story …It Feels So Good To Love and Be Loved define their characters to readers, as it relates how they themselves defined their characters. Laura Jane writes later that, “The short version is that we were both absolute social outcast teenagers who were ecstatic to find each other. In one another we found support, love, and a best friend. We’ve grown up together. It hasn’t always been easy. We both have a lot of respect for one another and for our relationship itself. Relationships are hard work, but the rewards are deep and many.”

Cameron embraces Laura-Jane’s blogging but, “…back in the old days he had a love/hate relationship with it because I didn’t censor anything. I swore, I gossiped about his irritating habits, and I left no stone unturned. As time passed, though, we developed a set of rules. In order for blogging to work for us both I have to respect his privacy.” And she adds that, “Now that we’re known in our community and we own businesses, he is even more protective of our privacy. He really respects what I do though. He reads all of my posts. And he’s written two of his own posts.”

At Whimfeld, there’s no conflict and that’s okay. Laura-Jane’s new web journal is an information rich look at the life in the country, and it can be grouped into multiple niches. It’s DIY home renovation, environmentalism, gardening, food, travel and photography. This female blogger has a good eye for photos, and a professional approach to blogging around compelling images. She writes, “…I still use my photography to illustrate my points. I love to combine my photographs with my writing. It’s some kind of symbiotic happy existence. I don’t like to write a blog post without an original photo to accompany it. Usually a photo will inspire the post.” 

“Blogging saved me in 2001. I love talking about blogging. I could cry talking about blogging.” Laura-Jane Dec 2009

Whimfield starts with a bang! A fascinating road trip story starts the Whimfield blog. Laura Jane opens the manifest by detailing her migration in Driving Across Canada: How To Sleep in Your Car In The Depths Of Winter with her boyfriend Cameron in a jeep like automobile. The couple slept in their vehicle and rigged a boat heater to run off the battery at night. The lessons learned and the manner in which they are related are truly unique and priceless.

Laura-Jane writes, “It all began with a desire to leave urban Victoria, mostly because of the expensive price of property there. We wanted a farm, but we did not want to be mortgaged to the hilt to get one. So we started looking elsewhere in Canada. It was a simple equation, really. Where could we go that was beautiful, idyllic, and affordable? We trolled real estate websites, and we looked at the most affordable properties that had all of the qualities that we were looking for. We saw a picture of our lonely little house, and it just called to us. We sold everything and drove across the country because of that little house. It was on Whim Road. We couldn’t resist it.”

Read Whimfield: Summer of Discovery to glimpse the passion for nature that drives Laura-Jane and read how she ‘discovered’ her own property blooming and coming to life in the spring. Because the couple closed on the farm in the winter, they more or less bought the property sight unseen and so took front row seats to Nature’s spectacle in the spring, summer and fall.

On the subject of Farming in Prince Edward Island, Laura Jane continues, “The dream for us was never to be farmers per se. The dream for us was to be able to have the time and freedom to dabble in a lot of things at once. For example, spending four hours a day on web projects, a couple hours outside in the yard gardening or farming, an hour reading a book, an hour playing music, and so on. Variety is the spice of life. Doesn’t that sound like heaven? It does to me.”