As I wipe the dust from the blog I want to give a special shout out to all of you who have stuck around and also for the many kind words I have received hoping that I would once again return to my little space on the interwebs which I call Don’t Fear the Vegan. Knowing it sounds absolutely cliche, the past year has thrown some extreme highs and lows at the DFV family, which in turn has fortunately brought us closer together, at the same time turn me into even more of a recluse during my free time, leaving very little energy to check in. Lame excuse? Absolutely. However it’s honest and real and you don’t deserve any contrived story.

For the last month my husband, Phillip, has been gone dealing with a family situation in Florida. Anzia (formerly known as “the Little Vegan”) and I had the opportunity to meet up with him for a week. I then came home on my own to fend for myself with the animals of the house.

Okay, I promise I am getting to the pig named Astrid part.

So I am gone for work 60 hours a week which leaves me time to give the animals a pat on the back in passing. Phillip is a stay at home, homeschooling dad as well as animal caregiver/spoiler/whisperer. Needless to say the animals are missing him something awful. Our cat, Kitty Kitty seems the least bothered as long as you listen for his pleas for more food. Felix the dog gets over his melancholy when I bring out his rope and toss it a few times or when I take him to fetch the mail and he gets the opportunity to mark his territory on the neighbors rock collection. Kitty Kitty and Felix have also both taken to sleeping on my bed taking up more room than Phillip and their snores will make his seem like a beautiful opera upon his return. As for the pig named Astrid, she is absolutely pissed off about being abandoned and has excellent communication skills.

She has found clever ways of letting me know that I am not meeting her standards in the following ways:
1. It started with the tipping over of all the chairs in the kitchen in the middle of the night, strategically placing them so I had to complete the obstacle course to earn my morning coffee. I’m still curious as to how she did it without waking me up.
2. Closing herself in my bathroom and blocking the door so I couldn’t get in ultimately making me late for work.
3. Flopping down in front of the shower door while I was in the shower keeping me from being able to get out.
4. Pulling Phillip’s clothes off the hangers in his closet so she could snuggle with them.
5. Knocking over the clothes in our hamper, carefully sorting them, bringing Phillip’s clothes to her nest, leaving mine behind on the floor in a pile only to piss on them.
6. Tearing her cover on her bed, then grabbing my phone charger from the outlet, hiding it in side the torn bed, and then pretending she is asleep on top of it.

The lesson from the pig named Astrid is that she is pretty damn smart and that there is enough critical thinking going on in her brain that she can plan ahead. I have also learned that all she is really interested in, aside from food, is for me to stop what I am doing long enough to give her a rub on the belly and a kiss on the cheek.

To keep up on Astrid’s escapades follow her on Facebook here