I think we are very lucky with our climate, because not everyone can boast four seasons that are so different from each other. Our summers can be really hot, and our winters can be freezing, and our spring and autumn are always beautiful. We have it all – beach season, white Christmas, blooming spring and golden autumn.
We live in Suurupi, a small village in Harku parish. As of June 2010, our village had 756 registered residents.
The place itself is small, but it offers beautiful natural sites and a sense of history. The first thing that immediately comes to mind is Suurupi Pank, a place where you can see picnickers spending a romantic evening or photographers capturing the sunset almost every day.
The lighthouses of Suurupi are also unique. The oldest of them, the Suurupi Upper Lighthouse, was built in 1760. The lighthouse is 22 meters high, but because it is located on a limestone cliff, the light is 66 meters above sea level and visible for 18 miles.
The lower lighthouse of Suurupi is currently the only working wooden lighthouse in Estonia, built in 1859. The lighthouse is 15 meters high, the light is located 18 meters above sea level and can be seen 11 miles out to sea.
Exploring them is both exciting and scary. 
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We pass through these places on our walks and bike rides and usually always have our dogs with us. I believe in the great effect of daily walks on keeping a dog's temperament and physical fitness in good shape. Excellent physical fitness is essential for dogs that are having puppies and there is a strong link between poor muscle shape and caesarean sections.
Our walks range from 4 to 12 km and most of my adult dogs are used to this distance. During the bike ride they are 100% on a leash for their safety and mine, but every now and then they are allowed to run around freely in the woods. Most of the walk or bike ride is on asphalt, but the dogs are used to it and their paw pads are strong.
Swimming! A great way to keep joints, muscles and fur in good condition. Since we live so close to the sea, we naturally allow our dogs to swim as often as possible. It’s a 10-minute walk from our house to the sea and our dogs go swimming all year round, except when the sea is frozen. It may seem scary to watch dogs rush into the sea between pieces of ice at a temperature of -5 C and then run out a few minutes later, their fur tufts freezing in an instant. But in fact, it’s a great pleasure for dogs, they go into the water voluntarily, they are used to it and have never been cold. On the contrary, as a result of winter bathing, they grow very strong and dense fur that does not let cold water get close to their skin. This is quite logical when you think about what the job of the predecessors of Labradors, the St. John’s hounds, was – they dived into icy water to help pull out fishing nets and catch fish that escaped from the net.
There is a lot of forest around where we live, so we don't complain about not having a place to train our dogs for the test. There is enough of every kind of terrain, sparse undergrowth for beginners, denser forest for experienced hunting dogs. All of these places are a short walk from us and sparsely populated. The places are also great for puppy gatherings.
The forests are naturally full of different animals, so we often encounter deer, foxes, rabbits and sometimes even moose. To be honest, you don't even have to leave the house for this, because they come to our garden themselves. We took this picture when we didn't have a garden around the house yet and this beautiful deer was eating our bushes!
In the spring, birds gather in our bay, and there are many of them, from seagulls to swans. The swans are simply beautiful!
HAA! I found the promised picture of Nimbus (Mallorn’s Chocomania) swimming with 30 swans. Actually, there were several of them.
Luckily, the swans get along very well with our dogs! At first I was afraid that it would be a land grab, swans can be very aggressive towards intruders and dogs are usually not very sensitive. But it turned out that the dogs are not very interested in the swans and the swans in turn like to watch what they do, so everything went well
There are a lot of small children in our village and that is another thing I am happy about. Not only because my children have dozens of friends, but also because the children like to go to our yard to play with the dogs and puppies. They sometimes take our dogs for walks around the village, take them to the playgrounds, help feed the puppies, etc. So my puppies cannot complain about the lack of socialization.
Thank you for reading! More pictures and stories may appear here in the future.
Maarit.