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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by UpNorth News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpNorth News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7.06.
It's nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning, June 3rd, 2025.
And still ahead in this hour, we're going to talk to Lincoln County Dairy farmer Hans Brighton Moser and Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association about June Dairy Month events.
We'll also talk to Sheila about legislation that's being considered in Madison or should be considered by some.
And talking about the, what do they call them, wedding barns, basically these barns that have become social venues and how they got.
They got the short end of the stick, shall we say, in a rewrite of liquor laws governing Wisconsin establishments, you know, bars and restaurants, distilleries, brewers, distributors, things like that.
And so we'll talk to Sheila a bit about that coming up this hour.
In our next hour, we'll talk to Civic Media political editor Dan Schaefer of the Recombobulation Area about stories in Wisconsin politics.
And I'll have much more to say in just a couple of moments here.
about Congressman Derek Van Orden and his ongoing addiction to social media and the dangers that it holds for his own constituents.
But first, it is time to take care of things in the Scani summer text to win contest.
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That would be a Wisconsin Dells area vacation at the Ringling House Bed and Breakfast in Baraboo or the Door County White Lace Inn with the little gas money to get you there.
Now, each time we do this four times a day, there's a different keyword that you'll need to text to us through the Civic Media app before the end of the hour.
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Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is off this morning, tells us a cold front is dragging across the state today and it's bringing showers and storms that may turn strong to severe later today.
And then once this all passes, comfortable and warm conditions will follow.
Our state forecast goes like this, cloudy skies, showers and thunderstorms, though folks in southeast Wisconsin may not see this until this evening.
Across northwestern Wisconsin, temperatures will be falling today into the mid fifties.
And up north, that's up north down in the southeastern part of the state, temps could hit the upper eighties.
and a southwest wind at 15 to 25 miles an hour.
That wind will shift to the northwest as the front moves through and the rain makes its way out of the state lows tonight in the low fifties.
Additionally, a big chunk of western Wisconsin is under an air quality alert for all that Canadian wildfire smoke, but do not be surprised if that area expands because
While the front is bringing rain, it's also dragging the smoke along with it as well.
So again, you'll want to take good care if you have any respiratory issues or just want to stay out of it because it's just so thick and soupy and yucky and just not a great time for outdoor activity.
Rob from Tigerton says, good morning.
It's partly cloudy and 70.
I did my Wittenberg mowing jobs yesterday than today to beat the thunderstorms this afternoon.
We really do need a good soaking rain, he says.
Yesterday, I also mowed the yard of the country school where my dad and his siblings went to school.
After my Wittenberg jobs, I tried to get some lawns mowed this morning before the rain comes.
And we were talking earlier about testing tornado sirens, and he says, Tigerton tests their tornado sirens at 11.15 every Wednesday.
So, again, Rob, thanks as always for the notes.
You can send your notes as well.
We were talking about June Dairy Month breakfast.
Alicia writes in on YouTube, yay, Dairy Month.
I get to go to another breakfast on the farm this Sunday, this time in out of Gamy County.
And there are just so many great dairy breakfasts.
And again, we're going to learn much more about them from Hans and Sheila coming up in just a little bit.
Up North News is a separate entity from civic media.
Love having this partnership every weekday morning from six to nine.
But at Up North News, the Wisconsin outlet for courier newsroom, you can also get our newsletters.
We now have three of them.
We have a weekday daily newsletter.
We have a Sunday morning politics newsletter that I put together.
And as Christina Laurie told us in just the last hour, her monthly sports letter is now moving to a weekly sports newsletter about some of the good stories and the good people that help make up our Wisconsin sports.
from all the all the teams college pro and otherwise so you can sign up for any of those three newsletters hopefully all of them head over to upnorthnewswi.com click subscribe in the banner on top of our homepage in today's newsletter from Christina
It starts with a little note about a pledge drive because of the North news we do we do that we do a pledge drive every quarter or so and Show our appreciation for all the folks who chip in a couple of bucks You know our newsletter does not have a subscription.
It doesn't have a paywall or website We'll never have a paywall, but we always said
Need a little bit of help to cover the news that we do and appreciate your support.
The newsletter also includes stories about where to get some of the best brats in Wisconsin and some of the best bike trails in Wisconsin.
And there's a letter to the editor in today's newsletter.
It goes like this, John Scowg lives in Osio and is a retired scientist, avid gardener and outdoorsman who is passionate about the transition to a clean energy economy.
So his grandchildren's quality of life will be better than his.
And so let me read a little bit from that editorial.
He says, as a teenager in the early 1970s, I recall listening to evening news broadcasts that featured smog reports.
and stories about nearby lakes and streams, which pollution had rendered unfit for wildlife and for humans.
Responding to the urgency at that time, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, created the Environmental Protection Agency and began 50 years of progress.
These laws and the regulations that came with them required the cleanup of industrial processes, reduced auto emissions, and more energy efficiency.
Our natural resources, our environment today is better because of it.
President Trump, he goes on to say, has never supported policies related to environmental stewardship, let alone climate change.
His actions since taking office were expected, but not at the speed and scale that we are seeing.
And again, you can get that full letter to the editor in today's newsletter or head over to WebNorthNewsWI.com.
Okay, I have asked this question on the program before.
And I'm gonna keep asking this question.
I'm gonna keep asking this question until we get a satisfactory answer.
Does anyone else have control over Congressman Derrick Van Orden's social media passwords besides him?
It's not that he's insulting me in the comment section, though I couldn't help but notice he did it yesterday when we called him out again for gaslighting his constituents about the current budget bill.
That's no big deal to me.
But the notion that a member of Congress can spend so much time online just hurling insults and criticizing his constituents or worse indicates to me he either doesn't have much to do or he just doesn't want to do any actual work.
Besides taking issue with something I said yesterday, yesterday was especially noteworthy for the latest of his many attempts at doxing or at least facilitating the effort to have someone harassed or fired.
merely for criticizing their congressman.
The latest case dealt with his comeback to a comment on one of his pages.
That's just something he likes to do.
He likes to get into the comment section and lash out at folks.
Recently, a woman from Stevens Point put a sarcastic comment under one of his posts.
Which, by the way, congressman, that comes with the territory.
Put on your big boy pants.
and absorb a few hits in the comment section, but no.
Van Orden had to go in and respond with a screenshot of her current employment and then went and made a new post of his own, including her employment picture saying, quote, another reason to be very suspicious of university professors.
The vast majority of academia are left-wing activists that are indoctrinating our children, not educating them.
This appears to be one of them.
Something to note here, if you click on this woman's Facebook page where she made the comment, there is no employment listed.
So assuming she didn't change that recently, it means Congressman Van Orden had to take the time to look up a constituent of his, online stalking basically for a man in his position, so that he could name and shame her for taking the time to put up a critical comment to one of his posts on social media.
That's a congressman doing these things So I went back again this morning.
I haven't done this for a while, but I counted yet again to get a sense of the volume of his Twitter addiction in the past 24 hours Derek van Orden has posted 45 times at all times of day Our congressman has an addiction issue.
Oh wait, there's more overnight
Congressman Van Orden retweeted a conservative commentator's post alleging that some US senators had financial ties to a shell company that got military contracts tied to the war in Ukraine.
That original information that he was quoting was from a satire account.
It had already been fact-checked as such a month ago.
And Van Orden
is still reposting false information with a little affirmation attached.
That was just one of the 45 posts he made since 9 a.m.
yesterday.
That's our congressman in action, or maybe congressman in action two words rather than three.
Let's check some sports at 718 Roger and Steven's point mentioned yesterday in the comment section You know the things you should use a comment section for what a great job Christian Yelich had been doing in that he should be the National League player of the week Roger was right Christian Yelich was named National League player of the week yesterday.
I was concerned He would not be in the lineup because he got hit in the hand with a pitch while that bat on Sunday But Yelich was in the lineup and in the third inning
He hit his fourth home run in six games and the Milwaukee Brewers extended their winning streak to eight games beating the Cincinnati Reds three to two on Monday night.
It's the Brewers longest winning streak now since running off nine straight in August of 2023.
Aaron Savalli picked up his first win of the season pitching for the Brewers.
The next game of the series is this evening and it will again start with a pregame at 535 on Civic Media Stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Park Falls and Hayward.
And then game three tomorrow is a matinee affair, pregame starting at 11.05 tomorrow morning.
And then the Brewers are off Thursday before coming home for a long homestand, starting with a weekend series against the San Diego Padres.
Still ahead, we'll be talking to Hans Breitenmoser and Sheila Everhart about June Dairy Month activities.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello.
You are listening to the Civic Media Radio Network and one more reminder that our text to win word keyword this hour is WAVE WAVE for $100.
Text it in.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
So I did mention that we do a Sunday morning politics newsletter and I did have time to tease Christina Laurie about her news about her newsletter, her sports newsletter, which has been so well received that instead of a monthly she's going to make that a weekly newsletter as well and that they were still kicking around the name Parker.
I know you heard that as well.
It's tough to name a product sometimes and you want to get it right or maybe it's a tagline that you're coming up with or something like that.
And I, I didn't, I forgot to tell her what we went through naming the, uh, the Sunday newsletter, the politics newsletter here, which of course had the, the generic name up North news politics edition.
Real barn burner there.
Oh
hook.
So he thought, well, it's, it's put a little thought into this.
And so she's talking about having trouble coming up with a name for the sports newsletter.
And we kind of struggled for a bit.
And then you ever get that moment where the light bulb goes off and you just go.
What took so long to come up with that?
Oh, yeah.
Because we had, we just, you know, in the past few weeks renamed the show from up North news radio to mornings with Pat Crite low.
A lot of work went into that till I finally realized we could call the newsletter.
Sunday mornings with back right low.
Hey, you know, so Sunday mornings with back right low is the name of the newsletter and we're glad to have everybody on board who is a subscriber in some way shape or form.
And that includes a question of the week that we do.
And I wanted to share this week's question and some of the responses that have come in so far.
And it dealt with who we had for guests last week, part of a coalition of progressive groups.
saying that now the state budget bill is still far from done.
And in the previous three of these budget bills, these two-year budget cycles, in the previous three bills that Governor Evers has had to face, he has addressed what the Republican legislature has sent him using partial vetoes to try to move some money or say, nope, we're not going to do this or we're going to modify that.
Well, this coalition of groups is saying that that just
isn't good enough.
That's not making the investments that a state budget should make in the education of our children, in health care, things like prison reform and so on.
And they wanted to make the case to Governor Evers that if this next budget doesn't rise to a certain threshold of support, he shouldn't try to fix it with partial vetoes.
He should just veto it.
Just veto the bill all for good.
and make the legislature start over.
Not everybody agrees with that necessarily, so we thought we'd put it up as our question of the week and say, which statement is closest to your thinking?
Either A, the status quo, I favor the use of partial vetoes and the governor should make whatever adjustments he can, or B,
Evers should veto the whole bill if it falls short of adequately using our tax dollars.
And I did put in an option C for our Republican readers.
Just sign it.
Whatever Republicans pass will be better than anything that Governor Evers proposed.
So there you go.
A, B, and C. So I thought I would give you the first examples that have come in through emails as a response to Sunday Morning's newsletter, which again is called Sunday Mornings with Pat Kratlow.
From Sue, she favors the partial veto, saying perhaps there would be a good faith effort to work together and make concessions on both sides.
Nancy says partial veto, let's start using the surplus effectively to help schools and caregivers and tax cuts.
But Tony writes, the scorched earth practices of the GOP must be met with the same hard line.
They have no interest in compromise and need to be shown for what they are.
And so Tony favors just a veto of the whole bill.
Same goes for Dale and Merrimack, where he says, usually I'm in favor of a partial veto, but this time veto the whole bill.
We need to let Wisconsinites know how bad the GOP effort was and really hit the public with what it could have done to Wisconsin while a partial veto allows the GOP to claim some victories.
And that actually is part of the crux of the current impasse on the budget is using the partial veto to claim some victories.
Governor Evers proposed a middle class tax cut last time around.
Republicans passed tax cuts that were weighted toward the more wealthy income brackets.
The governor used his partial veto powers to remove some of the favors at the very top and still keep some tax cuts that would impact the middle class and took some credit for that, saying that here's a budget that he signed that included income tax cuts.
Oh, Republicans howled.
They howled, saying this was their budget, their tax cut.
How dare he take credit for it?
How dare he seek the win-win, you know, where Democrats and Republicans work together to get things done?
And Republicans hated that.
Governor Evers, who wanted a middle-class tax cut, would take some credit for the Republican one that he had to first fix.
so that it was more of a middle class tax cut and not another giveaway to the highest income brackets.
So now they've been demanding that any kind of tax cut be addressed first before anything else in the rest of the budget because they want to make sure that they get all the credit that they deserve for any kind of tax cut that has ultimately passed, which again, it seems to be the phrase that we're using most this morning, put on your big boy pants.
Work together come to the negotiating table and that's what they've been doing.
They've had two or three meetings over the past week Hopefully those talks are going to continue Because again with a multi billion dollar surplus a multi billion dollar surplus There's room for win-wins in all of these for tax cuts and for education and for the environment and everything else
Alicia writes on YouTube, after hearing these opinions, I'm leaning toward a more complete veto.
The one downside on that is it would make the legislature start over and state government doesn't shut down.
So if there's a full veto, Republicans could also say, well, we just won't pass anything and we'll continue at the same spending levels as the past couple of years.
And so nothing gets worse, but nothing gets better either.
It's a fair debate to have and we appreciate your opinions on it to our newsletter or right here on the radio as part of your mornings here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
She'll ever hurt and Hans Brighton Moser are next.
A quick reminder that the Scani Summer Text-to-Win Contest is going on right now and this hour's keyword is WAVE.
W-A-V-E WAVE and the prize this hour is for $100.
And so if you want to be part of the Scani Summer Text-to-Win Contest, the folks statewide are texting in the word WAVE through the Civic Media app.
and one drawing will be made this hour for the $100 cash, but everybody who enters is part of the drawing for the grand prizes, a Wisconsin Dells area vacation at the Ringling House, Bed and Breakfast in Baraboo, or the Door County White Lace Inn, some gas money to get you there as well.
And again, this will be done throughout the course of the day, different keywords each time, 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and you have until the end of this hour to send this hours.
keyword, which is WAVE, W-A-V-E.
All right, June Dairy Month.
We're in day three of it right now.
And so it's a great time to talk to Dairy Farmer Hans Brighton Moser up in Lincoln County and Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
We're having a few connection issues with Mr. Brighton Moser here.
We will attempt to say hi to him in just a moment.
But let me start with Sheila first.
Good morning, Sheila.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
Thanks for inviting us on the show today.
You bet.
So nice to have you here again, as always.
There's always so much going on.
And we're also for folks going, are you just going to talk dairy breakfast?
No, we actually have some serious legislative matters to talk about while we're visiting here as well.
But Sheila, from an agricultural tourism standpoint,
Can you explain the significance of June Dairy Month and what it means in terms of attracting people to see the places that they just think milk and dairy products magically appear on their grocery store shelves?
It's so much more than that.
Absolutely.
You know, agricultural tourism is where agriculture meets tourism and it's really popular amongst tourists and travelers because
It is they want authentic, authentic experiences on working farms.
Nothing is more authentic than having breakfast on a working dairy farm.
Wisconsin agriculture is so important to our state.
Our dairy farmers of Wisconsin are so critical in the delicious dairy food that we enjoy daily, whether it's fresh milk, cheese curds,
ice cream, yogurt, you know all of the special dairy treats that we have become
It's our staple here in Wisconsin, but other folks around other states want to come to Wisconsin to experience our tremendous dairy products.
Yes, and it's worthwhile to note that folks go, oh, are we just going to be drinking a lot of milk?
No, all the products that you mentioned are there as well as a good breakfast in many of these places.
There are more than five dozen dairy breakfast opportunities.
We'll talk about some of those in a bit.
Hans, let's check our connection with you.
Are you hearing me okay?
And if so,
Oh, tell me about the importance of dairy breakfasts up closer to you.
Oh, there we go.
Let me try this connection with Hans again.
Hans, are you hearing me?
Nope, apparently not.
Oh, okay.
Tell you what, Hans, we will...
We'll call it good for this week.
We'll work on getting a better connection line established in the new Madison studio.
And we will catch up with you next week.
And we'll talk to Sheila a bit more about the dairy breakfast things here.
So, all right, thanks Hans.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you a little later.
Sheila, you, as we were getting into the food, but there's so much more than the food.
If people come to these dairy breakfast events, they're going to learn about
As you put it cow comfort and you know dietitians and barn designs and how milking is done This is not just about a good meal.
It's all kinds of educational opportunities as well
Yes, it's very much educational how our dairy industry today works
all of the advanced technology that our farmers are using to ensure that their cows are very comfortable.
When cows are comfortable, they produce more.
And that is the farmer's biggest investment is their animals and they take such good care of their animals.
So these...
dairy breakfast on the farm and if you go to WisconsinDairy.org in case you miss any of the dairy breakfasts we talk about today, check out WisconsinDairy.org and you can see 62 different dairy celebrations dairy breakfast on the farm.
So Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association is asking our listeners
To do the summer 4-4-8 challenge, try to attend four dairy breakfasts, four county fairs, and eight agricultural tourism destinations during summer of 2025, which we call the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Stacation.
So at these dairy breakfasts, there are always
family-friendly events and kids' events.
But we talk about the industry of the cow comfort for the farms and for the animals.
So cows actually have bedding.
Some use sand bedding.
Some have like a water bed.
Do you remember the water bed?
back
in
the
70s
and 80s, right?
So they wanted to have the cows to have the uniformed cover to support their bodies.
And you know, it's very important.
We talked about these girls being the farmer's big investment, but they feed them so well, and they have a
Total Mix Ration, which I explained to people that aren't farmers, is kind of like granola.
It's important ingredients that the cows need, including hay, corn, soybeans, fat, vitamins, and minerals, so that they have special dietitians that help those cows get the nutrients that they need.
Total Mix Ration.
rations so that not only are they comfortable, but they are fed well.
I think this is exactly the kind of thing that if we manage to get Hans on the phone, he could probably attest to.
Hans, do we have a better line with you now on the phone?
Hans, are you there?
I see Hans is up on the phone board, but unfortunately we're just not getting him
patch through where we can catch them on StreamYard.
Let me try one more time here.
Hans, I'm gonna try one last time.
Are you there now?
Hey, there you are.
Okay.
I'm I'm hearing you one way or the other.
So if you're hearing me okay, let's pick up where Sheila left off and talk about, you know, the formulated rations to make sure that I mean cows probably use a nutritionist more than a lot of people do.
If I would take as good a care of myself and my nutrition as I do of my cows, I'd probably be seven feet tall and bulletproof.
Yeah, but I do not have my own nutritionist, but by God, I've got a couple of them working for not directly for me, but through feed companies that help us figure out the diets for the cows.
So all the ingredients that we put up
Like, for example, yesterday, we chopped first crop.
In fact, we got done last night at 11.30.
But we got it all in before the rain.
So that feed is getting stored, getting packed here today and covered up.
And then that feed will be tested by the nutritionist to see kind of what its value is as far as digestibility and protein and all the things.
And then with that, the nutritionist will build a diet, including that first crop halage and corn silage.
and mineral and all sorts of other things.
So the nutritionists are a really big deal.
So then when it comes to the milking parlors, Sheila's notes here remind us that we've come a long way since the bucket and stool and that milking parlors are all about increased efficiency and less time has spent milking so you can do more cows throughout the course of each milking.
I can only imagine what you would say about the changes that you've seen over the years.
I mean, I'm old enough to remember the buckets and the stepsaver and so forth and the stanchion barns and that.
So it's definitely a human being efficiency thing, but it's also kind of a cow comfort thing.
Because we want to make sure that the cows are spending their days eating, drinking, laying down, doing all the things.
We don't want them to spend all their time in the milking parlor, in the holding area waiting to be milked.
And we want to make sure that
The parlors are ergonomically comfortable for the cows and for the people who are milking them
So these
and Sheila I imagine as well.
It has to be one of the most
exciting things for kids that are on the farm tour that have never seen a milking parlor to see exactly how this gets done.
And all the more so with all the more robotic technology has to make it just a show for kids and adults as well.
I think it's really important, especially for our more mature audience that might have been on the farm with the buckets and the stanchions to see the advancement in the technology with the freestanding barns and the rotary parlors.
And so there's quite a few farms that offer daily tours.
Sassy Cow Creamery out of Columbus outside of Madison has tours.
Pagels Ponderosa out by Kiwani in Green Bay.
That's the largest private dairy farm in Wisconsin.
And then Hinchley's Dairy Farm out of Dane County, who's also hosting a dairy breakfast June 14th, offers tours of their operation.
And all you have to do is register online and bring the family and get behind the scenes tour.
But what's so
about these 62 various dairy breakfasts throughout the state is that not only do you get a scrumptious breakfast, you get the opportunity to tour the dairy barn where the cows are being milked and learn about the farm operation.
We're talking to Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association and Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Brighton Moser.
Sheila, I've got just over a minute until break, so it's not enough time as you would like to answer the full question, but.
On the topic of wedding barns and the overhaul of liquor regulations last session, there's been talk about making sure that these farm venues are treated more fairly.
Do you have a quick update as to whether that legislation is under consideration making any progress or is it still very much on a to-do list?
Well, there is an LRB that has been drafted and we're looking for our Republican elected officials to sign on and support this bill that will give reprieve to the private agricultural event venues on working farms.
All right.
And again, when she says LRB, that's the Legislative Reference Bureau, meaning they've written the bill.
There is a bill.
It needs to be introduced, sponsored, given a bill number.
Then it goes to committee and enables, again, people to testify about these wedding barns or, you know, some talk about pizza barns, other venues, and to make sure that the rules regarding, you know, beer and wine sales are fair to everybody involved, not just the bars.
the restaurants and the distributors, the distillers, the brewers, but to these small businesses as well that are essential for parts of agricultural tourism.
Civic Media's political editor, Dan Schaefer, is coming up in our next hour along with, let's see, who's it going to be?
Oh, it's going to be Chad Holmes, of course, because it's Tuesday from 98.9, WXCO, all part of our mornings powered by UpNorth News here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Rightlow.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
All right, tomorrow morning on the program, we will have Earl Ingram visiting with us, along with Melissa Kay from our station at Wisconsin Rapids.
James Kelly from the Civic Media Newsroom in Chippewa Falls.
Todd Alba, Melissa Baldoff will have our climate check as always a very busy Wednesday mornings here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Again, Brewers at Cincinnati Game 2 of the series coverage begins at 5.35 on some of these Civic Media Radio Network stations.
Hans Brighton Moser joins us by phone.
She'll have her heart this year from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
We've been talking primarily about June Dairy Month, but before we went to break
we just wanted to touch on briefly, again, the overhaul of liquor regulations in the state and how that ended up really impacting, you know, event barns and really, I guess, Sheila, how would you describe the biggest harm that's done, that they can't sell at these events or they can't even schedule the events?
What is the biggest harm under the current law?
The way the law was written and it will be, it will be going to effect January 1st of 2026.
Currently our agricultural event venues who many have been operating for 30, 20, 15 years with no incidents across the state of Wisconsin.
It says private.
party invitation-only events like a wedding, do not need an alcohol license.
The farmer does not sell alcohol.
The brides and grooms buy the alcohol through a licensed retailer, through the three-tier system, and they have an open bar, and they gift the beverage to their guests who attend the weddings.
Okay, so once again,
Happening Wisconsin's been a state for since 1848 Wisconsin farm weddings are a tradition So then in 2023 legislation was enacted act 73 which now effective January 1st of 2026 it says private party invitation only agricultural event venues
are limited to hosting six events per year on their farm.
And they can only have their guests be served or consumed beer and wine.
Okay.
And just the six events is what they would be allowed right now.
The six events per year.
So, you know, agricultural tourism and the agricultural fed venues are seasonal, temporary,
permitted uses on a working farm.
So generally they are operational farm weddings are mid-May through October, right?
So farmers have that window to offer a wedding.
Usually they offer one wedding a weekend, right?
So on average a farm, a seasonal farm would offer maybe 20, 30 weddings a year.
Again, it's a revenue stream for these working farms.
Yeah.
And so there's a proposal that would increase that limit from six to maybe up to upwards of 36 events.
And again, not run afoul of state law regarding this.
And Hans, to you, we've talked a bit about, well, we've talked quite a bit about farmer diversification, that this is one of the many ways that farms in Wisconsin seek additional revenue streams, which shouldn't be that alien.
I mean, it's something that, I mean, I don't know a small business that isn't looking for other ways to bring in different revenue streams, and all farmers are asking for is, you know, a fair shake from the legislature.
I mean, you know, back in the day, Pat, we, you know, farms were more diversified by nature.
Every farm had some pigs.
Every farm had some dairy cows.
And our, in our area, and certainly south of me in Marathon County,
Every farm had a quarter acre ginseng.
The diversification was sort of baked into the cake, but things got specialized over the course of time for various reasons and so on.
And, you know, we've become these commodity producers.
So if I feel like anything that helps us get back to that model where there's more diversification.
um i think is a good thing and so now the diversification nowadays might look a little different where we have to be in the entertainment business and not just in production ag and if that's what some people want to do i think that's a wonderful thing and the other thing that's important in all this is this sort of a historical aspect of it you know when i was a kid there were so many bank barns
still standing right these old barns that were built in the late 1800s early 1900s stone foundations the stones for the stones that were picked to clear the land to begin with and the and the barn beams were the were the trees that were harvested and so forth there's lots of history there and in order to you know keep these barns alive they have to have a use because it costs a lot of money to put a new roof on a great big old barn like that so they so they have to generate some income otherwise
you get more of the rural blight that we've seen for the past number of decades.
Without a doubt.
And so if you wanted to learn more about this issue or any of the many things happening with dairy breakfasts around the state, Sheila, what's the best way for folks to learn more about the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism
Association?
We are just trying to preserve family farms.
We're trying to keep the family on the farm for the next generation.
We're trying to allow the farmer to have a viable revenue stream to supplement the farm income when commodity prices are low.
Yes.
And so again, go learn more at wiagtourism.com.
I was just getting that up on the screen here for our social media viewers as well.
And so again, so many events to see and legislation to follow when Sheila Everhart takes care of that for us.
Sheila, thank you so much.
Great to catch up with you.
Hans Breitenmoser.
Thank you for getting up early after staying up late getting that first crop of hay off.
Hope things continue to go well.
We'll talk to you both a little later on.
Thanks, Pat.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Coming up in our next hour, we will be talking to chat homes from 98 nine WXCO about stories following in the Wasar area, including spring high school sports and civic media.
Political editor Dan Schaefer will be along as well from the Reconpopulation area from the heart of America's up north live from Lake Wissota.
I'm Pat Krightlow and you are listening to the Civic Media Radio Network much more after the eight o'clock news.
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