SEQUIM – Critterhaven, the Peninsula’s sanctuary for farm animals, will close and depart for the Midwest this spring.
“We bought a 40-acre farm in the Ozarks,” said Susan Stahlin, who with her husband Bob Bashaw has been running Critterhaven on less than four acres southwest of town since 1997.
“We are trying to place animals,” Stahlin added.
“We have 200 current residents,” from adopted roosters to rescued horses, cattle and donkeys.
“We’re shooting for May,” to move to the farm, which is in Missouri near the border with Arkansas.
Bashaw and Stahlin expect to take six donkeys and eight horses with them to the Ozarks.
“The logistics are obviously pretty staggering,” Stahlin said.
She and Bashaw are originally from the Midwest and have children and grandchildren in the region.
For some time, they have struggled to keep Critterhaven, a kind of Noah’s ark, afloat.
“This year’s winter has been exceptionally difficult.
Many of the shelters were unable to withstand the heavy snow, the winds and the continuously saturated ground,” the couple notes on their Web site, www.CritterhavenFarmSanctuary.org.
“We have been tremendously fortunate to have been able to find a lovely new, permanent place . . . There are three great barns, a safe and secure chicken house and plenty of room to play.”
Stahlin told the Peninsula Daily News of the plans to move while attending the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year luncheon.
Critterhaven volunteer Marcia Schnaubelt had nominated Stahlin and Bashaw for the annual award.
They received runner-up honors while Bob and Elaine Caldwell, driving forces in Friends of the Fields and Olympic Theatre Arts, received the 2006 Citizen of the Year plaque.
