A Squarefolk column
Dear Dolly
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Printed at the farm · Filed also with Ozarks Goat News
Answers from the walnut desk in the Quonset hut, Arkatype Farms, Arktopia County.
From Hester P., a square off the Marshfield road
The Limb That Waited
Tuesday night’s wind dropped a wild black cherry into the north paddock. By first light the two yearling does were standing on the wilted leaves like it was a salad bar. They ate breakfast later and look ordinary. I pulled what I could see. Last April I planted sage and lemon balm along that same fence, and the does have been voting on the balm.
What do I do with the rest of the tree, and do I pull the herbs?
Pull every wilted leaf and every broken twig out of that paddock before you make coffee. Green cherry on a living limb is one argument. Wilted cherry after a blow is the one that turns. Do not wait on “they look ordinary.” If a doe is breathing hard, staggering, or showing gums the color of a barn-sale ribbon, that is the county vet, not this desk.
Walk the fence after every wind. Same walk you already owe the latches.
Sage belongs inside a goat-proof bed, not on a fence the yearlings can reach from a downed limb. Lemon balm may go in the Friday cup if you still have any. The rest of the tree can stay on its own side of the wire. The salad bar cannot.
— Dolly, the Quonset desk
From Cal and June, first-year barn east of the Niangua
Biscuit Under the Wire
We bought the pot-belly as a fence neighbor for three Nigerian doelings. Thursday he rooted the bottom of the welded-wire, walked the herb row, and finished the bucket of tomato skins we meant for Friday. The doelings used his hole. He is round. The tomatoes were heirlooms. We planted thyme and two more Better Boys. The pig panel has a six-inch gap at the dirt.
A pig reads a gap the way a goat reads a latch. Six inches at the dirt is an invitation written in mud. Set a board or a hot wire at snout height, and pin the panel so he cannot lift it. Goat fence is not pig fence. You found that out with the Better Boys.
Kitchen skins are not a ration. Measured pig feed, some forage, water that is his. Friday rescued food is for the table first. What is left can be sorted. No onion pile, no “he looks grateful so pour more.” Round is not a breed standard. It is a condition.
Thyme may stay. Put it where a snout cannot file a claim. Close the hole before the doelings take the rest of the garden to committee.
— Dolly, the Quonset desk
P.S. — Charlotte: I would have seated him at the far end of the porch and given him a job, not the tomatoes.
From Wren Hale, the porch that faces the square
Bare Necks and the Second Tub
The old hen went bald at the neck last week and the young one is picking at her vent. We thought molt. Then I found specks on the roost after dark. The Muscovy pair have claimed the goat tub by the loafing shed, and the kids drink what is left. Heat has not left. We planted parsley and more thyme for the Friday pot.
Part the feathers. Clean skin and pinfeathers is molt. Grimy skin, moving specks, dirty fluff at the vent is not molt. Treat the birds and the roost. Some mites live in the wood by day. Some ride the hen. You will not win by washing only one address.
Ducks will hold a meeting in any single tub. Put a second tub where a frightened kid can reach it if the first one becomes soup. Shade that actually shades. This county already preached two tubs this month. I am not starting a third sermon.
Parsley is a goat snack if it lives outside the fence. Thyme can go in the Friday cup. Keep the cooking herbs inside wire the Muscovies will walk around and the does cannot vote on. If a comb goes pale or a hen stops eating, that is the vet, not a dust bath and hope.
— Dolly, the Quonset desk