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.