Huffington Magazine Issue 75 | Page 63

ARIN GREENWOOD Exit Terry Cummings, explained. Cummings and her husband, Dave Hoerauf, run one of the country’s only farm-animal rescues, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, on 400 acres in Western Maryland. The farm is only about an hour from the nation’s capital, but with the trees and hills and chickens — not to mention the lack of folks in khakis talking about the debt ceiling — it seems much farther. And speaking of chickens: In addition to Harrison and Clarice, plus Harrison’s clucking nemesis, Alvin, Cummings and Hoerauf have some 60 other chickens of a variety of provenances. They fell off trucks, or came from animal shelters after backyard hen-keeping didn’t work out for suburbanites. Some recent acquisitions had been mailed in a box to a man who decided he didn’t want the chicks and just threw the box away. Then add in about a half-dozen turkeys, 40 pigs, three horses, several donkeys, 22 goats, 19 sheep and 11 cows, all of whom have names and many of whom also bear stories of abuse, neglect or lucky escapes from slaughter. They’ve got it better these days. During a recent visit, a 1,000-pound pig named Patsy, who was removed from her home THE THIRD METRIC in North Carolina where she was being starved, was treated to a belly rub. And Sophie — a newly arrived pig, still small — snuggled with a teddy bear under a heat lamp before getting up for some treats. She’d been sold as a potbelly to a family by a farmer at the side of the road; they quickly discovered that she wasn’t as advertised and dispatched her elsewhere before she landed at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary. “I taught her to sit!” Cummings said, holding out a banana to Sophie. HUFFINGTON 11.17.13 Terry Cummings opened Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in 1996 with her husband, Dave Hoerauf.