Winter summary :o)

It has been spring outside for one day already, so it's last time to write winter summary. Actually I started it long time ago but wanted to fulfil and old promise first and now it's done, there's more then this posting, I wrote 3 more to last summer – Lucky’s 3^rd litter, Lucky’s show and our Sheltie vacation with Karin and her Shelties. At least 4 items deleted from my list of things-to-do-when-I-some-day-will-have-spare-time-for-it :o). Considering I have there photoshop, photographing, html, all the books I have ordered but haven’t read yet ... well, plans are still much bigger then my possibilities. Not to forget that Kelli and dogs will always get the time they need.   But to the point:

I’ll start with an interesting event from December. We visited dog show in Finland with Karin and Fancy.  First the most important part of it – Fancy was BB2 with CAC and CACIB, she is FIN CH now. And Fancy’s and Lucky’s daughter Lily was best puppy day before. Congratulations Fancy and Lily!!! It was so nice to see dear “old” friends – Lucky’s daughter Lily and son Nemo and to meet people I know from FB but have never really met before. And additional bonus to all that was ... shopping :o). We had a lot of time to search through all the corners of shopping area :o) and my personal saboteur (don’t blame my innocent dogs, I mean 2-legged saboteur :o) ) wasn’t with us,  so couple of very necessary findings I did. Like fancy winter jacket for Lucky. Not that I would underestimate his coat, definitely not. But we have agility trainings in building that has same temperature as outside, where, for the time his trainingcompanions run, Lucky is in crate and to keep his muscles warm, wears the jacket now. And as Fancy was kindly helping to find right size we call our fancy jacket Fancy-jacket. Couple of pictures too of Lucky in his new Fancy-jacket ( that I promised to take for Yana – thanks Yana, for keeping us company in Finland, it was really nice to meet you.)

Then Christmas. As every year, dogs had school vacation with Kelli and spent the end of the year in country. We had nice real Christmas with a lot of snow, very cold weather and all the Christmas traditions. As every year, we took hey and carrots to forest. We haven't noticed big demand of what we have taken there, but it's something different from our everyday life,  it's tradition,  it's just Christmas. This year, I have to confess, we adapted our tradition a little, as weather was really cold, we used the sleigh you see on picture background instead the real one :o).

I’m sure I don’t even have to mention Rocco and Lucky have been good boys for whole year, you know yourself. Well, Santa knew too and this year brought them dog bed. It's very popular, shared between 3 – Rocco, Lucky and Tikker (Tikker is our dear old Tiger, but when Kelli was smaller, then due to her spelling changed his name. Tikker is sweet name too, means Gooseberry :o) ).

I had couple of days free between Christmas and New Years Eve, so I got long holidays too. Our good trainer Kristina warned us not to eat too much ;o),  so to be good students, we took this very seriously :o) and went skiing every evening. Skiing in dark or in moonlight is nice, nobody else on the trail and speed feels much higher. Lucky was happy to run free between me and daddy and cheer us both. I put my sport watch on Lucky and used mobile app myself - Lucky's distance was 1,5 x longer then mine :o) . We stole time to go skiing on new years eve too and hopefully my family doesn't read it, but it was best time of the evening. The starry sky was much more beautiful then the fireworks at midnight.


This winter has been generous with the snow but not with the sun. According to  Estonian Meteorolgical and Hydrological Institute  during first  81 days of the winter  there was 49 hours of sun.  Certainly too little and most of it probably on workdays . All the pictures I have made are dark and grey. But there was a cold and sunny day in January on weekend. To be as much as possible in the sun, we decided to go to bog. To save even a little of sun for following working week, I took camera with me. It wasn't easy to get to the bog, first we had to dig out a car that was stuck on our way :o). Our good car and good driver took us safely to the goal, but still there was quite a long walk to the bog. Temperature was below -20 C so I gave up my good plan to take good photos to tempt Karin there at wintertime too :o). But without trying at all I just couldn't leave, so couple of snapshots I got  and one of them for you to see here too.

 Then a topic that can’t be skipped  is of course skiing :o). After trying it for 2 winters I have decided I don't like it :o). But then again, my calories don't like it too and Lucky likes it very much, so we'll definitely continue :o). Of course there's one more good reason to continue - it's that skiing is so popular in Estonia, that you can hardly find opportunity to move any other way then by skiing :o). Ski trails are everywhere and they are overcrowded.  When we go skiing at country we meet much more people then when we walk in forest and on beach near to our city home on evenings :o). And when in town people walking, running, skiing are OK for Lucky, then in country he just has to bark on every single person he meets in forest. I have to see someone coming first and keep Lucky in contact with me until we have passed the skier.  So if Kelli doesn't join us,  with daddy we have changed to ski on car roads:o). Small country roads are covered with snow and cleaned to the level that makes them good enough for skiing.  We have met only couple of cars there and anyway cars are less dangerous then dedicated skiers :o). Or we go skiing later, when dedicated skiers have returned to their homes. For Lucky skiing is fun :o) He hops next to my ski tips barking or runs after daddy and back to me, still barking all the time. So his vocal chords are in as good physical condition as he is, very sporty :o). Skiing gives him good opportunity to use his energy, which, though, seems to be endless. Kelli participated on President's hike, it's 10 km on skis and about 2500 participants including Lucky, me and our daddy :o). Not to give Lucky opportunity to bark on all 2500 skiers he was on leach and pulled me all the way as real sleigh dog. This was our first time to ski on leash and included mountains and slalom between other people. Huh, though. This winter we  have collected quite a lot of kilometers on skis. But still, every morning I run to to window to see if snow has melted :o).  But no sign of melting yet, and as  this week is school vacation and my vacation too, and we are in country we have no other option then to collect more kilometers. With daddy late in night with beautiful moonlight and starry sky, or with children at day time, when I have opportunity to be a sleigh dog for my brothers son :o) .Soon, I hope, melting at daytime and freezing at night will create the hard surface on snow we can again go to river banks we have skied previous years. This is real fun, can't wait. As I'm still not good at all in skate skiing (shame on me, Kelli learned in 2 try), I don't carry camera with me and so I don't have photos for illustrating. So just one more to end this posting, made of first snow last autumn.