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Dolly at the Quonset writing desk answering letters, Charlotte watching, goats in the porthole
A Squarefolk column Printed at the farm · Filed also with Ozarks Goat News

Dear Dolly

Squarefolk write in. They want to know about goats, herbs, latches, and whether the comfrey is a friend. They do not write about Blue Mist. That is a different desk.

Dolly answers from a walnut desk under the Quonset arch. Charlotte reads over the stack and adds a postscript when a letter needs a flank. The same advice goes out on a card at the farmer’s market. Professor Gruff, D.Capr., Emeritus of Comparative Bleating, runs the packet at Ozarks Goat News. He does not edit the advice. He only checks that nobody has asked the mist a question meant for the mineral feeder.

Address: Dear Dolly, Arkatype Farms, Arktopia County. Say what the goat did. Say what you planted. Leave the sky out of it unless the sky ate the hay.

Each packet sits in its own folder on the farm door. The first four letters stay here as the sample stack.

Sunday, September 13, 2026 — The Limb That Waited · Biscuit Under the Wire · Bare Necks and the Second Tub.

Wednesday, September 9, 2026 — She lifted the latch and took the sage · The mineral turned to brick · The pig found the kitchen door.

Dolly in Goat Maiden dress at the Arktopia County Farmers Market, cards reading Goat Maiden and Dear Dolly Lifestyle Consulting, heirloom tomatoes and Custom-Made Kid Aprons on the table, Charlotte under the cloth with one blue eye and one brown
Saturday stall. Goat Maiden. Dear Dolly — Lifestyle Consulting. Custom-Made Kid Aprons. Charlotte under the table.
Saturday stall

Two cards at the farmer’s market

On market mornings she dresses as the Goat Maiden. Flowers in the hair. Charlotte under the table. The stall sells two services and a few products. She keeps two different cards in the apron pocket.

One card is the Maiden — weddings, birthdays, beverages brought to your place. That card points at TheGoatMaiden.com. The farm’s account of why the character exists is on the Maiden door.

The other card reads Dear Dolly. Underneath is printed Lifestyle Consulting. That is this desk, standing up: goats, herbs, fences, Friday rescued bread, a household that is fighting itself. Blue Mist does not belong on that card.

One product on the table: Custom-Made Kid Aprons. They go on the bucklings. They keep a young boy from doing the wild thing with the doelings and the dams before the farm is ready for that kind of weather. Practical. Washable. A little prettier than they have to be, because it is still her stall.

Dolly tending rosemary and sage in the raised beds, old white farmhouse behind

From a square off the Marshfield road

The goats found the thyme

Dear Dolly — I put in thyme, sage, and lemon balm in a pretty row by the clothesline. By Friday the Nigerian girls had it down to sticks. How do you keep herbs and goats in the same county?

You don’t, not in the same row. Goats read a herb bed as a salad bar that someone forgot to bill them for. Put the cooking herbs inside a fence the goats cannot negotiate — woven wire, not decorative cattle panel they can stand on. Raised boxes help only if the sides are tall and the latch is not a suggestion. Ocean would like me to mention latches.

On this hill the kitchen herbs live by the Quonset door. The goats get their own strip: mulberry, willow, and the tough things they are supposed to browse. Comfrey they will mow. So will they mint, if you are foolish enough to plant it where they can lean.

— Dolly, the Quonset desk

P.S. — Charlotte: If it is green and inside the fence, it is a crop. If it is green and outside the fence, it is a lesson.

From a first-year barn in Arktopia County

She looks at me like I have the wrong hands

Dear Dolly — My doe kidded last month. I want to milk. She stamps. I have watched three videos. Please do not send me to another video.

Stand her on a stand she already thinks belongs to grain. Same hour every day. Wash your hands. Wash her udder. If she is hot, hard, or the milk looks wrong, that is a county vet question, not a column question. I will not diagnose a bag from a letter.

Talk less. The videos talk too much. A goat decides whether your hands are weather or an event. Be weather. Keep the kid on her if that is your plan; take what extra she offers after he has had his. If she has no kid at the side, you are on a twice-a-day clock and you do not get to sleep through it because you had a Goat Maiden booking.

— Dolly

P.S. — Charlotte: Grain first. Hands second. Debate never.

From a porch that faces the square

May I drink the comfrey?

Dear Dolly — My grandmother swore by comfrey tea. I have a patch. The goats love it. Can I put it in the kettle after Friday dinner?

The goats may browse it. You should not make a habit of the kettle. Comfrey carries pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Old hills used the leaf on a bruise, not as a supper drink. I keep it in the box for the soil and for the stock that chooses it. I do not pour it for guests.

If you want a Friday cup from the yard, use lemon balm or thyme. They forgive a cook. Comfrey does not.

— Dolly

From someone who almost asked the mist

The field goes blue some evenings

Dear Dolly — After rain the low field turns a color I do not have a name for. My neighbor says plant more sage. My other neighbor says do not walk into it. Which neighbor is doing homesteading?

Sage is for the sauce. Walk the fence. If the hay is dry and the goats come when you shake the bucket, you are doing homesteading. If you go looking for the color itself, you have changed desks. This column is the first neighbor. The second neighbor can write Cloverfolk in care of the paper.

Plant the sage anyway. It will not stop weather. It will season the tomatoes.

— Dolly, who prefers the dew to the debate

P.S. — Charlotte: Bucket first. Color later.

Walnut Quonset kitchen with olive cabinet and apron sink
Where the herbs go after the letter is answered.
Cream wicker porch on the old white farmhouse
Where Madge reads the column aloud and Ira says the latch was always the point.