Transcript
This (Manure’s) Gettin’ Real for WI Farmers (Hour 2)
Mornings with Pat Kreitlow · Tue Feb 18, 2025
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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat
Breitler.
Hey, good morning.
Welcome back to the second hour of Up North News Radio, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and Carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7.06.
Nice to have you along on this Tuesday morning, February 18th, 2025.
Coming up, we'll talk to Hans Brighton Moser, a dairy farmer from Lincoln County.
about the ways that some Wisconsin farm families are finding out the hard way that the the cutting of so-called wasteful spending includes farm income that they were counting on in part because of contracts they made with the government that apparently Elon Musk and Donald Trump think you can just easily break.
and stiff a whole bunch of Wisconsin farm families.
So we will be talking about that coming up in just a little bit.
We'll also talk to Chad Holmes from 98-9 WXCO in Warsaw as well.
Temperatures this morning are just dangerous.
It is 16 below here in Chippewa Falls right now.
Hayward is at 26 below zero.
Amory, 18 below.
Wausau, minus 14.
Wisconsin Rapids is at 21 below right now.
That's the air temperature.
La Crosse is 18 below.
Green Bay, 11 below.
Madison's at minus 12.
Milwaukee is at 7 below.
And at Racine's Radio Park, where Greg is, it's 8 degrees below zero right now.
And meteorologist Brittany Merlot joins us to tell us much more about the cold weather.
Right after I tell her that in Tigerton according to Rob.
It's clear and 12 below the windshield is 28 degrees below zero It is very cold bundle up dress-in layers.
He notes that the the snow
The recent snow had been a blessing, preventing his pipes from freezing.
A good snow cover can really help in this extreme cold weather.
He says that he will be voting today at the Germania Town Hall.
He never misses an election.
Good job, Rob.
Today's polls have just opened across Wisconsin.
Polls are open until eight o'clock tonight in today's primary.
And finally, he says to my civic media friends, I want to say cheers to you all for National Wine Drinking Day.
So there you go.
Yeah.
So cheers
to
you, Brittany.
If you're assuming your wine hasn't frozen by now.
Seriously.
Oh my gosh.
You know, it's a funny story.
I actually have a wine bottle I use as a snow measurer.
So I actually have.
Sure.
Sure.
I see.
It's great.
It's great.
And then it tells you, depending on how many inches of snow you get, how many glasses of wine that you can have from that bottle.
It's pretty cool.
I was going to say, you got to, you got to post a picture of that.
Just find any reason
to drink in the
state.
And then yeah, we'll find, we'll find, we'll post some opportunities for, you know, meetings that we could attend together, uh, because that's the weather.
We'll do that to us sometimes.
I was going to say,
what a better way on national wine data than to spend it with a wonderful more low.
Oh,
see now this, this is why.
This should, this should be the box show.
You come up with this stuff.
No, not get off.
All right.
Just stop with that.
I, I, I'm just, I'm taken aback by this guy sometimes.
This guy just did like an almost 10 minutes straight, like dissertation on corruption in politics.
And I make one pun and he's like, it should be your show.
Well, if I could just sit back and enjoy some wine while I listen, I would totally do that.
Oh, wait, that's what I did all last week.
Back to the cold weather, Brittany.
How much longer for this?
Oh, gosh, well, we've still got today.
It's still going to be chilly tomorrow, and then we're finally going to be feeling none below zero wind chills as soon as we get to Thursday.
So what's happening right now is across the state, especially in the Fox Valley and along the lake shore, your wind chills are worse than in the middle of the state.
You're actually feeling about 33 below zero into Waukesha, 31 below into Appleton.
So those wind chills, still a big factor here today.
Winds are moving at about five to 10 miles per hour, but they will pick up this late morning into the afternoon, gusting around 15.
That's just too much when it's this darn cold.
Highs today are only going to be climbing to the single digits all across the state.
Once again tonight, we fall back below zero to about five to 10 below.
So not as severe as tonight, but still cold.
So of course, we're going to see those cold weather advisories going out once again overnight tonight into tomorrow morning.
Then I think we're going to start to feel a little bit better.
Tomorrow's temperatures will be in the double digits.
about 10 to 15 degrees across the entire state.
The winds start to ease.
Plenty of sunshine both today and tomorrow.
And then by Thursday, we will climb into those low 20s.
Now, the good thing with this weather pattern is there's no snow in the forecast.
Maybe a few flurries could be flying around late Wednesday night, but otherwise it's dry.
It's sunny and.
cold.
So layers, like Rob had said, that's the keyword.
And just pay attention to your fingers, your toes, your ears, your nose.
You can get frostbite within minutes out there this morning.
Okay.
And Rob adds a little addendum on YouTube.
Watch out for blowing and drifting, especially on county and town roads.
That could be a factor as well.
And here's our new favorite listener, Tiffany in River Falls, writes in on the text line.
Hello from my new commute between Wisconsin and a Southwest Twin Cities suburb.
I look forward to listening to Pat and Greg live during my commute.
Instead of catching the replays, keep up the great work.
Well, thank you very much, Tiffany.
I think Tiffany wanted us to feel better after that.
block, but you guys really are as stupid as you seem.
Like, okay.
Hey, when some of the
red hat calls me stupid, I'm like compliment.
Thank you, sir.
We'll take it.
Brittany, thank you for a big warm up coming next week.
Yes, we will soon as Sunday and into Monday.
We're looking at some 40s.
So hang in there.
Holy cow.
That also
doesn't seem right.
You know what I
mean?
No, it's
not.
Can't just be level.
That was your
lovely way
of saying the world's on fire, but who cares?
It's all right.
It's all right.
It's
fine.
Everything is fine.
Exactly.
Thank you, Brittany.
Thanks, guys.
All right.
Let's see.
It says here, what is this?
Tom and Jackson.
Is Brittany paid by the feds?
Tom, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Paid by this.
I don't know.
The Up North News daily newsletter.
You can sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com, get our unabashedly Wisconsin news.
Christina Laurie puts it together.
And an interesting set of stories in today's newsletter.
One is an article about the 12 best books set in Wisconsin.
I got the first one right, which was, you know, Little House on the Prairie and Laurel Ingalls Wilder and the next 11 clearly need to go on my reading list.
So you can learn more about that in today's newsletter, but also a note about it, you know, this is, you know, breast cancer awareness time and there's an article about mammograms.
And it's one thing for insurance to cover
the mammograms used for screening for breast cancer.
That was part of the Affordable Care Act.
Every insurance company, every insurance plan has to cover an annual screening mammogram.
That makes sense.
But a lot of women, when the test isn't necessarily definitive, they need a different kind of mammogram called a diagnostic mammogram.
And that's not covered by the Affordable Care Act.
But some states do require health insurance companies in their state to also cover diagnostic mammograms.
Because if they're not part of your health insurance that you're paying for, but you have to pay out of pocket, you may delay getting that diagnostic mammogram.
which gives time for the cancer to spread.
So in a lot of states, they now require insurance companies to cover the cost of the diagnostic mammogram.
But guess what?
Wisconsin, like in so many other things, healthcare related, with Republican majorities in the legislature for over a decade now, Wisconsin is part of the minority of states that does not require insurance coverage of diagnostic mammograms.
So that might be something that we could hear about.
from Governor Tony Evers in his budget address tonight.
Certainly a lot of specifics will come from the governor on things that he thinks should be covered in healthcare, in education, in protecting our environment, especially our clean water.
and much more.
So again, the governor's budget address before the joint session of the legislature is tonight.
We will be talking about it at length tomorrow morning.
We will have a couple of state lawmakers with us to discuss their reaction to the budget address and their reaction to the Republican response to it.
Where we can once again expect to hear a lot of talk about obstruction a lot of lashing out at the governor for you know big government and big spending and things like that But as you just heard in that one example there are areas in a budget where
it's the old ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
So we'll hear what the governor had to say tonight, and then we will be talking much more about it tomorrow.
And of course, we'll be covering everything about the budget in our newsletters, sign up at UptownNewsWI.com, not just for the daily newsletter, but we have a new weekend politics only newsletter that I've started to put together.
It comes out on Sunday mornings.
So consider it your new Sunday paper supplement for
getting you set for the week ahead in Wisconsin political news.
Again, sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
When we talk to Hans Breitenmoser coming up in a few minutes, we're going to be talking about the ways that Elon Musk has been cutting funding.
for or at least attempting to cut funding for a host of programs and it was noted in the comment section at some point and I want to bring it up here on screen for folks watching on Facebook and YouTube.
A commenter named Billy says they have paused spending to review legitimacy of allocated funds.
This article is spreading misinformation.
No, Billy, actually not.
And it's not actually a pause.
Again, you can call things whatever you want to call them, but there isn't the authority to pause and review.
We have a process for that.
It's called Congress.
It's called the regular legislative process, the system of checks and balances, where a budget is passed, executive agencies are authorized to spend so much money on certain things.
The experts go to work on that, especially through a process of dedicated civil servants who pledge their loyalty to the country, to the Constitution, not to a political party or to a president.
But that's changing now under Trump and Musk, where they don't want the experts, they don't want people who are going to speak truth to power.
They want a bunch of yes men in there.
And they want the power to single, decide single-handedly.
Who gets money and who doesn't?
So it's not like they're going to pause, review things, and then things are going to be operating pretty much as they were.
It's that they're going to restart spending for the things they like and agree with.
and hold back the funds for the things that they don't, making up some kind of an excuse or another.
And as has been noted by others, including one Greg Bach, you would think that if they're really looking for, you know, all of this fraud, there would be things like lawsuits.
And we've got a commenter on YouTube who says, they never answer.
Where are the lawsuits by the Justice Department?
Because if there is this actual fraud that we're talking about,
Pam Bondi is the new Attorney General.
I'm sure that if Donald Trump said, sue these folks for fraudulent use of funds, should be all over that.
And from the Department of Justice, we're hearing crickets because that was never the intention.
We'll have more coming up on Up North News Radio live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I pack right now.
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Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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Got an 80s theme going here again.
God, I loved moonlighting.
That was a great show.
Oh, Sybil Shepherd is 75 years old today.
Happy birthday to her.
She and Bruce Willis were just magic.
The theme song there from Milwaukee's own Algero.
I did not realize till I looked up during the break here.
There is a website called The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee.
there's an entire site dedicated to Al Jarreau, the Acrobat of Scat, born in 1940 to a musical family in Milwaukee, passed away back in 2017.
But whenever you heard his, you know, silky voice there on, I want to say Thursday nights, but it might have been Wednesday nights.
But oh my gosh, such a good show.
This song is like so 80s.
Yes, so 80s it comes with its own like set of smoky glasses and I just I mean it's just in a pair of parachute pants I just I love this song so and I loved it and that was a I was a kid I was like yeah like that show was on in like the late
But the dialogue the dialogue was very much in that Slapstick comedy not not so much the physical but the banter yeah back and forth yeah the banter was I don't know that there was banter like that that was so fast and witty
really until, you know, like the West Wing and all the Aaron Sorkin stuff came along after that.
And I say that having no idea who actually wrote, you know, who did most of the writing for Moonlighting.
But it's in that same vein.
And I absolutely love that.
I just don't want them to ever redo this show.
Oh, no, please don't.
No, no, no, no.
Don't restart.
things that are classic.
If you like something, keep it going.
Keep it going for like 50 years, like Saturday Night Live.
You like that transition?
No, it was very clunky, but I'm going to take it anyway.
I did watch it last yesterday, by the way.
Did you?
Okay, because I see the ratings are out and it was NBC's most watched prime time entertainment telecast in five years, reaching nearly 15 million viewers.
Holy
monkeys.
That's the most since the 2020 Golden Globes, where the audience was
Kind of much more shut in.
Only the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade brings in bigger viewerships in recent years.
But and I did want to confirm something I said yesterday.
Yes, that was Meryl Streep's first appearance in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
And you finally get to watch all this last night.
I did.
I did.
I was wondering like Meryl Streep, are you breeding cue cards?
Did you try to memorize your lines or you just say, I'm just going to try because she was definitely not.
She
does not normally read cue cards.
No, you know, being a movie actress and I'm, I'm quite certain that, uh, cause you'd watch her eyes every so
often and
she's trying to keep up.
And you know, it just goes to show again, there's different kinds of entertainment that sketch comedy is not the same as, you know, uh, acting off a script.
Just
like improv is not the same as a standup routine.
And it's always, it's always a little fun to watch the, the
misadventure of somebody changing into a different lane.
I was, I, I was, there was a lot of, there was a lot of fun stuff.
I liked the format of the show.
I will say black jeopardy kind of lost me at the end.
Like they didn't need to put Tom Hanks on there.
They just,
they just couldn't handle that
Murphy.
You had Eddie Murphy doing Tracy Morgan right next to Tracy Morgan.
That was gold.
Yeah.
The, the, the change to Tom Hanks was very weird.
And then it just became the, yeah, that, that, that didn't end up being as fun as the original version, which is one of the best sketches they've ever done.
Yes.
Um, but yeah, it was, it was a good time.
Adam Sandler song was amazing.
Weekend update was very, very fun.
I just, yeah, I enjoyed it.
I think that,
and they could have done even more with weekend update.
It was fine.
I don't have any quibble with it, but if they'd wanted to do more with Tina and Amy and if they wanted a few other folks to come in, I know, you know, as Colin Quinn was noticeably absent from there.
No Colin Quinn, no Kevin Nealon.
No
Danny Acroyd.
No Danny
Acroyd.
No Bill Hader.
No Dana Carvey, even though he's been in some other recent shows.
Yeah, right.
I expected him to be in like at least two sketches, but I will say this.
Between the concert at Radio City Music Hall and the 50th they did on Sunday and a gas tire wins for like just the immovable object.
She was she every time she was on stage and she was on stage a lot.
She knocked it out of the park every single time
there.
There were definitely players that came back where you go.
Why did you leave?
You're still, you still got it.
You're so good at this.
And others, I mean, obviously we all have phases in our lives and, you know, you can't quite hit all the marks with the same kind of timing because.
doing a show like that.
Again, one of my favorite bits was the one about everybody who's done SNL has
anxiety.
Yeah, exactly.
That was a great digital story.
Yes.
All about how everybody who does that show feels like they're going to throw up all the time because it is one of the ultimate tightrope acts in show business.
I was also surprised there was no Conan.
He was in the audience.
I did see him there.
Oh, that's
so
that's so weird that he wasn't on stage at all for anything.
Yeah, he was there not too far away from David Letterman.
who was there got called out by Steve Martin.
It was a little weird for Steve.
Steve Martin said, how did he say he was now?
79, 78, 79 years old.
And it was a great weekend update joke.
When they were talking about there's now a four part epidemic going on out there with, you know, COVID and RSV and, you know, a couple of other things.
So why not take
all of these AGM legends and put them all
into one
room.
Quademic.
Yeah.
That's right.
And then there were just some times you're like, Oh, you don't really want to be on stage right now.
You don't really want to be in the sketch, right?
Bill Murray on weekend update was very weird.
He's just, I think he just, I'm fine with him.
You're good.
You're
fine.
Yeah, he is what he is and always has been and rightly blamed, you know, maybe some of the substances that he took back in the day to deal with the above mentioned anxiety.
Yeah, it could be.
There was, I mean, it got off to an awkward start there with Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter and I think that was
maybe a little bit of butterflies in both their cases.
I mean, you're in front of all these people.
You're kicking off the, and my initial thought was like, Oh no, is this what the whole show is going to be like?
And it really picked up after that.
And you could tell both of them wanted to do it.
It just, I think they both wish they could have rehearsed it a bit more.
But she still had, she still had the best line where he talks about performing the song in 1978.
And she says, I wasn't born and neither were my
parents.
I know.
I was like, ow, ow, lady.
That one hurt a
little
bit.
I right away had to do the math figuring if her parents were born like the next I'm like could that really be it's like yeah if her parents were born the next year if they had a kid at 23 and that kid were now 23 you know the math would work out I'm like
That's not helping me feel better at all, but still overall just a very enjoyable thing.
And now after what feels like 50 years of build up, we don't have to hear about 50 years of Saturday Night Live.
I can't wait for the 60th, baby.
Or whatever else.
What other show is next in terms of being on for.
Anything close to that?
I think that today's show is the only show that's been on longer.
Meet the press, those two shows, but they never have done like a big celebration.
No, I mean, all right,
well, you got
shows like Lawn Order and NCIS, but we'll talk to Hans Brighton Mosier about that
more
next.
All
right, here's a little extended version of today's history lesson.
We mentioned at 650 that Pee Wee King, the Wisconsin native who co-wrote Tennessee Waltz, was born on this day.
He was also the co-writer of a song called You Belong to Me, which was made famous by singer Joe Stafford back in 1952.
But Pee Wee King is also credited with bringing the musicians union to the Grand Ole Opry.
He was one of the first musicians in Nashville to carry a union card and to have his members in his band work in a union.
So we salute Pee Wee King who was born this day in 1914.
In Abrams, Wisconsin, he was born Julius Kaczynski and he passed away in 2000 at the age of 86.
So a little extra history as we bring in Hans Breitenmoser as well to note there's one other history note I didn't have time to get.
It was on this day in 1930 that a cow named Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane.
and the first cow to be milked in an airplane as part of an aircraft exposition in St.
Louis.
And so she was rather famous for a time starting this day in 1930.
I am sure Hans, you were very well aware of that knowing your dairy farm history the way that you
do.
No, no, no, that, I'm glad you enlightened me.
That's fascinating.
Yeah,
uh, you know, you never know what you're going to find when you're looking up these, these history things.
So there, so there we go.
A couple of notes here.
Uh, what's the, do you have a little thermometer outside the milk house there?
there we go.
Yes, it is.
It is so bad out there.
Um, but it does, it's one of those days again, and we're getting.
I think fewer and fewer people that can say this uh that can say well there was that time when it was too cold for the the machinery to run and you're you're milking by hand you know in weather this cold uh you're not seeing nearly as much of that as you used to
well yeah there's a few too many cows to try and milk them all by hand but it does it definitely creates problems we've got problems with you know manure systems and and ironically milk cooling is an issue when it gets this cold
But we got everything running here again this morning, so we're gonna muscle through for another 24 hours or so, and then it looks like it's gonna get a little bit better.
Yeah, here's hoping, although it is not gonna get better in other ways for farmers who are now learning just what it means when Donald Trump and mega Republicans say, you know, we're gonna cut waste.
The waste they're talking about would be Wisconsin dairy farmers.
We've got
a
video report up on our site from Selena Heller who talked to Aaron Pape who is a farmer in Pestigo and says he's looking at a $30,000 loss after Trump reneged on contracts signed by farmers across the country.
These are conservation contracts.
Selena writes between the USDA and farms that committed to practices that preserve the future of the environment.
They are now on hold.
Meanwhile, the money has already been spent leaving many family farms in limbo.
Pape says they're just trying to do good things while taking care of the environment.
And it's how I introduced things earlier in the show, Hans, by saying it's very easy to criticize federal spending.
when you don't know exactly the good that that spending does.
And I thought that'd be how I kick it off with you in terms of, you know, yes, it's easy to make fun of something like, oh, the government's paying farmers not to farm on their land.
Hans, that's for a real good reason.
Well, absolutely Pat and you know, you alluded to it earlier You've got a couple of billionaires Making all these decisions on things that they simply know nothing about and the idea that that this money is just being handed out willy-nilly with no thought I mean, there's there's a process that goes into it and and there should be a process if we decide that as a Society we no longer want the benefits that come with these cost share agreements then that's fine But we need to get there in a you know by means of good old-fashioned
democracy and not just the whims of a couple of billionaires who simply don't have a clue about how these programs work.
And I think the other important thing that people need to understand is that not only this puts those farmers in a bad spot financially and otherwise, but think of the lenders because typically how these programs work is if you get cost sharing for, let's say,
you know, some conservation practice or something that costs some money, then typically how that works is you go and spend money first and you get reimbursed for those funds.
So you may go to a commercial bank.
The commercial bank understands that you're good for the loan because you're getting backed up by these dollars and everybody's...
happy and everybody's made whole at the end of the day.
Think of how many bankers are out there right now scrambling and also lenders looking at new loans with a great big question mark going, I don't know, I don't think we want to take that kind of risk.
So now these things get halted before they can even begin.
And it puts just a lot of pressure on these banks that are serving rural America as well and the loan officers that are doing the work out there because they don't know what's
you know, gonna happen tomorrow.
It's the unpredictability of it that makes their lives miserable as well.
So what you're telling me is this is literally undermining that line about how our banking system is backed by, quote, the full faith and credit of the US government.
That if you can't have faith in the credit of the US government, that when they make a commitment, when they sign a contract to carry through with it, and some rich guys can come in and willy-nilly rip those contracts up,
I mean, that hurts more than just this one family farmer in Pestigo.
It hurts, frankly, the entire banking system.
It hurts ag writ large.
It hurts rural areas.
It hurts so many things because, and again, you just connect these dots.
You follow that back and say, here's the reason why we had the system that we had so that it is stable, so that it is reliable, so that people who are
Anyway involved in that system have have an understanding of how things are going to play out because it's because historically it hasn't been just the whims of a couple rich guys who are so beyond clueless about how things work in rural America I'm gonna go sideways here pat if you'll indulge me a little bit And and because I feel like all these things are connected
So last night I was at a 4-H Leaders Association meeting.
And, you know, we're doing the usual things where there's young people, there's adults in the room.
We're talking about spring trips and all the things that 4-H offers and so forth.
It's a bunch of parents and some young people involved in the governance of our local 4-H.
And so we're going through the thing.
And at one point, politics always kind of jumps into
my little brain and and I sat there looking at all these good people thinking about how to make their community better and how to make the lives of their children better and counting paper clips because the budget is is you know as little as can be and you know wondering where this money is going to come from and how can we make that program better and so forth and it occurred to me that right now
the people who are running the country have never ever once sat in a meeting like that.
They have no clue.
Now I know that's a little bit different than the topic that we're talking about, but my point here is that if you've got a couple billionaires who are allowed to do everything with no checks and balances, what kind of public policy do you think you're going to get when you have people that are so far removed from our reality?
Well, and look at how they're removed from the reality of the people around the world who are in dire need of food and medicine that we're able to supply and the good that we do for global stability as a result.
We've been hearing all about the halting of, you know,
the USAID offices, the Aid for International Development.
And that includes a whole lot of food purchases that would help, you know, hungry people around the planet.
But that also means now that a whole lot of dried red kidney beans, a whole bunch of dried cranberries, a whole bunch of dehydrated potatoes, all of these things grown in Wisconsin are not going to be purchased.
And so you literally are going to have already
harvested crops and food products rotting, not to mention the financial insecurity of whether to plant these things or not this year.
Yeah, it affects everything it affects the production it affects the consumption it affects the transportation it affects the financing get literally affects everything and that's why we've had the system that we've had all these years of checks and balances and of You know reasonable thought processes that go into things rather than just saying yeah, these two guys are pretty smart Let's just let them make all sorts of decisions left and right that impacts so many people in in in so many ways I mean we're talking about
real human lives here.
You know, I think, I think there's, you know, there's something to, it's concerning for me as a rural person and as a farmer that these programs are going to have negative impacts on people.
But you know, when you start talking about that USAID, we're talking about life or death for a lot of
people.
Yeah, we truly are.
And then one last area I'd cover as well when it comes to uncertainty is crop insurance and disaster relief.
When you look at how
From Trump on down, the way that they have politicized disaster relief for the California wildfires.
Now, imagine that in two different states, crops are damaged either by flooding or by drought.
and that one state their farmers would get aid and another one the state wouldn't based on the partisan whims of a president or a congress and you can see where this is simply a recipe for madness and why it sounds to me like it's just going to drive more farmers off the farm.
I just I don't think that these folks care.
I mean again, you're talking multi-billionaire Elon Musk Do you really think he's concerned about who owns the farmland?
I mean, he's he's absolutely positioned to gobble up as much of it as as he wants You know if he decides that that's a good investment.
So yeah, we're this is
this is not this is not how democracy is supposed to work no clearly it doesn't work well i mean that's the point here right it doesn't work well if if the if the measure by which things are working or not is doing the most good for the most people most of the time then i think uh
boy, we've got it, we've got it in reverse here right
now.
This is a very awkward transition to make, because now we're talking about the next generation of farmers and people working in ancillary fields.
But this is National FFA week.
And let us I mean, we
We have no choice in this instance, but to try to be a little bit optimistic here and to say that once we get through whatever this ordeal is, we're still going to have people, young people who choose to go into farming and agriculture overall.
So talk to me a bit about the value of FFA in Wisconsin.
They you know, I was an FFA when I was a kid talking about leadership skills and so forth It's it is it ranks right up there.
I mean you 4h and FFA the impact that they have on our rural areas is is really tough to match and Without without it, you know, you don't know It's uncertain again what the future is going to be so so absolutely
you know, FFA has done so much.
And I think a lot of people don't understand either that it's, that it's, you know, that FFA is cranking out all sorts of kids going into all sorts of positions.
But one of the things that I think is important that FFA really trains young people about is civics and how democracy works.
I mean, just to Robert's rules and having a meeting and why it's important to, you know,
Why the democratic process is important and by God we need to teach our kids that now more than ever
Oh boy, do we ever.
And also, let's talk about ag education.
You know, there are a couple of hundred ag educators throughout the state for folks that think, oh, farming, you know, it's just your parents tell you what to do and you just do it.
No, it's always farm education itself is always evolving to make things more efficient, but also to make things safer on the farm as well.
So, I mean, there's just so much good that is done by what was known as Future Farmers of America and ag education.
And again, we've got the governor's budget address tonight, where we will hear what his plans are for the rest of rural Wisconsin, and then we'll talk in a couple of weeks about what the governor proposed and what else is happening between now and then.
But Hans, thanks for filling us in on the misadventures of Musk, at least to this point, for rural Wisconsin.
Shin up as best we can, and we'll talk in a couple of weeks here.
Pat.
All right.
Appreciate it.
Thank you very much, Hans, for all you do for us.
It is coming up on 749.
And when we come back, we're going to be talking to Chad Holmes from 989 WXCO radio, where already from Roger and Steven's point, there is a Facebook question for Chad about sports.
So we'll be hitting him up with that and finding out what else he's talking about on his show, which follows this one.
Again, on WXCO in Warsaw, or you can listen through the Civic Media app.
civicmedia.us to learn more.
This is Up North News Radio live from Lake WSOTA on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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That would be some of the toonage that you'll be hearing in total in about 15 20 minutes or so and Chad Holmes will be along on his fine show on WXCO in wasa and he joins us now as he does every Tuesday We're gonna.
We play the game.
How's he feeling?
How's he sounding?
Chad Holmes.
Good morning.
Good morning Pat.
Hey Rome.
He sounds good.
Yes, he does.
He's almost there almost there Or as Tony refers to him on YouTube
Mr. Wassum.
There's
nothing there.
I
love that.
Just
I don't know.
Silence.
We'll give you this instead from Tony.
Tony puts I hear Chad might need a company car.
Yes, Mr. Holmes did have a post.
I don't
know that you could even know how many miles you've put on over the years covering sports for WXCO, but you reached a milestone, not the kind you want to reach.
Now, Saturday nights went to Green Bay, did a hockey game, getting, coming home.
And the thing about it is, it's about timing.
Yes.
And I always take a certain route back after a game.
I've been there a number of times.
I looked at my phone and said, well, this route was going to be two minutes shorter.
So I could go to the app sign and I'm about to turn left, which I always do.
Then at the last moment I turn right.
So I went the other way and I paid for it because ultimately it was a little outside of Sean.
Oh, too dear to fly right in front of me.
I mean, just right in front of me.
And I tried to adjust, but it was really nothing I could do.
It was more of a.
a glancing blow on the right hand side of the vehicle.
So
it was not as bad as it could have been.
It didn't look good.
No, it was not good.
But it could have been worse.
I mean, you hear stories.
I mean, if you hit them straight on, they can fly right into your windshield.
So actually, I tried to get in, but with the holiday yesterday.
So after the show today, I mean, I can still drive it actually, which is a nice thing.
But after the show today, I'm taking it in and we'll find out what the...
the total damage is on it.
But fortunately, my insurance company says that it looks like.
Oh, I mean, this is old hat to them.
So
yeah, I didn't do anything, you know, where they would look the weasel out of it.
And you know, no, no, no, not that you can't that not with deer in Wisconsin, which by the by the way, well, Tony writes, what a great example of why you shouldn't try new things.
Stay
in your comfort
zone.
Don't listen to technology.
Look, if you want to save government money,
We came up with this idea a long, long time ago.
It's not a ton of money, but you could save a lot of money, get rid of all the deer crossing signs, and put them at the border.
Just one at the border that says deer crossing next 350 miles.
Because every place, I mean, every place could be a deer crossing zone,
you know?
Over the last few years, I've noticed more roadkill than I've ever.
Especially when I go out west towards yours part of the world bat when
I drive that
way I tell you it has been just crazy
We do Roger from Stevens Point question for Chad.
I noticed was saw East Girls basketball had several cancellations on their schedule They would be seven games short of a full season.
They aren't playing the better teams in the Wisconsin is at the Wisconsin Valley Conference Yes, including this Thursday against Stevens Point.
Are they low in player numbers?
He writes.
Yes, they are in fact even before the season started there was some
rumblings that they would not be able to play a varsity season.
And in certain games, it's been very overwhelming in terms of the scores.
And
I
have noticed that as well that a few of the games against the top teams in the conference, they have not played.
You know, to be honest with you, I find it a little disturbing because I think there should be a way that those games should still be played.
I think that
both for the team that is struggling like East and the teams that may be like Stevens Point and I saw that they, I believe it was Marshfield, they didn't play as well.
The opponent should be able to understand the situation as well.
that we're able to get these games in, at least get the girls the opportunities, and not have a game that's 112 to 3 or something like that.
But I know what the reasons are, but I can't
do it.
Well, and that's why I don't want to go down too deep a rabbit hole here, so you don't have to go anywhere with this.
You don't want to go.
But to me, the question is always, how much of it is declining enrollment within a particular school district versus
the ability to, and again, my words, nobody else's, kind of sort of recruit across school district boundaries.
And I'm not, not, not saying that's happening here.
But when you see things like this, it makes you wonder about disparities among school districts that aren't that far apart, but sure seem to have a lot of people using the open enrollment program one way or the other.
And maybe again, maybe I'm just being all conspiracy theorist, and if so, I will plead guilty to that.
I don't think it's in this case, knowing what I know about it.
I'm not saying that's never a factor, but
Not in this case.
Okay.
All right.
Good.
Thank you for keeping me on the, on the straight and narrow on this, uh, from the, from the mail bag here from, uh, Cameron Falk, uh, about our last segment, false info, good job, liberal news, uh, to which, uh, Deborah responds, Hey Cameron Falk, freedom of speech is wasted on these dorks, which I appreciate the honesty that you don't think we should have freedom of speech.
That's called
liberal dork today.
All right.
Nice.
I love the idea that freedom of speech is the freedom to tell me that.
I'm right all the time.
It
gets
better.
It gets better.
Here's Ron saying, I feel bad for all those 120 year olds who will lose their social security.
Again, another common talking point by the right that there are all these people who are getting social security by claiming to be 120 or 150 years old.
No, there's not.
It's been knocked down.
Please stop just getting spoon fed.
If they stop saying it.
They have nothing else to say because all they do is speak in false platitudes.
So there you go, Chad.
I've teach you off for a few things.
Whatever you're going to start with, just go there instead.
Hey guys, WSU's down the street.
Clearly our show is more entertaining.
If they'd rather play the role of statler in Waldorf show, I'm perfectly good with that.
Chad Holmes.
Thank you so much.
I know.
See, we got, we got the engines revved and ready to go.
Thank you, sir.
Greg Bach is back for Matt and Aaron Aaron two hours and I'll be back tomorrow morning at six a.m.
with up North news radio.
Have a great Tuesday.
We'll see you tomorrow.
You're up north.
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