First, the goat. Yes. A goat. We found her (she had udders) living in the only house on Manteca. The reaction: “Holy Sh*t, there’s a goat!” Of course, I did not believe it when my eyes met the white and brown spotted creature staring blankly out the front door. I swore it was a statue. Until, she moved… and walked around the house. I kept taking photo after photo at this beyond-strange anomaly, completely baffled about how a goat wound up living at 4228 Manteca. Did it stray from a farm off Missouri Bottom Road? Was it abandoned, left here to fend for itself off of Carrollton’s vastly mowed acreage? The udders made me most worried about it… where was her kid? How long ago did she have it? She also had some bands around her legs which were also of great concern for her past conditions, where ever she came from. She was no stranger to humans, but she didn’t trust us enough to get within arms’ reach. She watched us for a long time, then turned and went into the basement.
So I left our new friend, but not without leaving a message with the Missouri Humane Society to let them know about a stray goat in an abandoned subdivision. I decided to take my usual exit route through Asherton. Once again my eyes were lost in the vast blankness of the area until my eyes rested at the shiny silver gates that blocked our exit from Asherton onto Brampton.
“When did this get here?”
“How did we get on the wrong side of the gate?”
“I don’t know….”
“Did we pass any others?”
“There were no others… we came in off of Natural Bridge!”
Yup, directly in front of us was a gate that, once I got out and inspected the sign facing Brampton, it said, “Road Closed. No Trespassing. Property of City of St. Louis.” They must have put up late in the first week of September. The odd thing is, we were on the wrong side of this gate, and we certainly did not see or go through any other gates until this very point. So I did the only thing legally I thought I should- take the car over the grass and go around it to the correct side. I stopped and took some shots. There were gates on the next street, Lyford, both ends of Marburn Ct., then posts on Chartley and open gates on Woodford Way at Weskan. As I drove around more, we saw gate posts at Ellisnore, Celburne at Allenhurst, and both sides of Chartley from Celburne. So more gates are coming and soon there will be more areas in which we can no longer access. (more…)
J. Desy Schoenewies
56 Houses Left 