SEQUIM — A Noah’s ark, complete with animals jammed shoulder to shoulder, hangs on a wall near Susan Stahlin and Bob Bashaw’s kitchen.
A larger ark, also landlocked, clamors outside.
After nine years just northwest of the city, the ark known as Critterhaven must look for other pastures and barns, said Stahlin.
She and Bashaw own the house and 3.68 acres of the land where they care for six donkeys, eight horses, 39 goats, 15 potbellied pigs, eight dogs, 10 cats, two Amazon parrots, two iguanas and “a bunch of birds,” including geese and chickens.
An adjacent 3.3 acres is borrowed from landowner Teresa Thompson.
Stahlin and Bashaw planted grass seed on it this spring so they can turn the horses out on it in a few months.
They’re fervent in their gratitude for Thompson’s loan. But when they look at the horizon, Stahlin and Bashaw see something other than animals occupying that land.
A load of sand was dumped there recently, and “we panicked a little bit,” said Stahlin, 55.
Thompson has also had wells put in on her property.
To Stahlin and Bashaw, those things look like precursors to development. They’ve faced the likelihood that their borrowed pasture will one day turn into a subdivision.
Thompson, who owns other properties on the Peninsula, said she’s not sure how or when the Critterhaven acreage will be developed.