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Hey, good morning.
It is 8.06.
Nice to have you back here up north on a Monday morning, November 17th.
It's a chilly one out there.
Remember what I told you on Friday when it was really mild?
I said, remind those kids.
Not to forget the coats Friday afternoon when they come home because they're going to want a Monday morning.
And I am starting to wonder how many kids had to go to the bus stop and like one of their dad's coats and he had to pin the sleeves up or something and get a lecture.
Anyway, nice to have you along as we sneak up on 807 here.
And as always on Mondays, we visit with our friends, John and Gordy from our civic media station down there in Madison 927 WMDX.
John and Gordy, good morning to you.
How was your weekend?
Good, Pat.
about you?
It was great, yeah.
It was nice.
We, you know, yesterday the sun was out, so we thought, well, we have procrastinated long enough on window washing, so we did that, and we watched the Packers.
Well, we listened to the first part on the radio, which you can hear on several civic media stations here, and it's always nice to hear Wayne and Larry.
Except this season, you know, you can hear it in the announcer's voice is that this is not
It's tough.
We talked about how it's tough to watch.
It's sometimes tough to listen to as well.
It's like, oh, he dropped another potential interception or they dropped another pass or they missed the extra point.
Yeah.
And that, you know, I guess I know it's territory.
We want, you know, one.
What am I saying?
Well,
see how that worked out for you.
that he's played.
All right.
When he when he missed the extra point for the second time, I immediately thought of the the classic meme with Tyra Banks.
We were all rooting for you.
How dare you?
Backup kicker just wasn't making it work.
Guys, you were probably like exhibit A for our question of the day, working on a news talk station.
There's a lot of politics out there, but there's a whole rest of the world that's out there as well.
And we really struck a chord with people in our Sunday morning newsletter when we talked about an NBC News poll about how many Republicans have close friends who are Democrats, how many Democrats have close friends who are Republicans.
And so I simply asked, do you have a close friend who is your political opposite?
And if yes, how do you make it work?
And if no, why not?
Is that by choice or by circumstance?
And
I mean, just a flood of emails came in with people wanting to talk on both sides of the question.
One here says, I avoid the people who I know who do not share my values.
But another says, I do have a close friend, mostly try to avoid anything that brings up a political topic.
And back and forth it goes.
And like I said, some of them extremely heartfelt.
And you know, and I know as well, that we can't run
a decent radio show that's, you know, 24 700% politics, you got to have a little bit of both.
But that's it's one thing to do it on the radio.
It's it's another thing to do it with people that you consider close friends.
It's a real challenge these days.
Yeah, I have a I have a mega friend in Milwaukee.
I oftentimes talk about here and and we
we separate politics from our personal past.
So when we're talking about, you know, being roommates the long time ago and me trying to go out with his sister and all this stuff, you know, it works out.
And then he talks about my old girlfriends and how we tried to date them.
All that kind of stuff is okay.
But when we get into the politics, he's a mega, very, very hardcore mega.
There is no talking to him whatsoever and I become a terrorist on the left
Get back to get get back to Bruce Springsteen's glory days and just talk talk about you know days gone by Gordie.
How about you?
friend, a childhood friend, we were friends all the way up through high school, and then we kind of lost touch.
But the last time I talked to him, and this was maybe 10 years ago, I discovered he was really an extreme right wing kind of person.
And we haven't really talked since.
I mean, he had, you know, and I expressed, you know, where my political feelings lie.
And yeah, we just haven't
communicated.
Yeah.
But that was, you know, that's about the only one.
I have some other friends that I know we disagree on politics and one that lives in Chicago.
And we just we don't we just don't talk politics that often.
Occasionally, we will bring it up.
But we keep it short and sweet.
really?
Yeah, yeah.
Here's another my best friend and neighbor of 40 years is a solid Republican.
The last time we discussed politics is when she asked me if I liked Hillary Clinton, and I said yes, we haven't talked politics since that's how we stayed friends.
Wow.
I get somebody else earlier put up that let's not forget pre Trump, there were people that broke off friendships the other way.
because they had the audacity to support Barack Obama
back in the day.
So
I mean, every situation has its ups and downs and friendships that are strained by, I don't know, things like trying to date your sister or something like that.
But politics just adds a whole different dimension to it.
it
well, here's, here's hoping.
I mean, it is what where you see some people starting to break ranks with, you know, the the MAGA movement is to say, well, we're not going to defend people that might be covering up, you know, pedophiles and bad behavior and things like that.
But with somebody like a Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia, you just, you don't know what to
Believe because they'll say something and then they'll backtrack on it.
Yeah, or they'll just say something so ridiculous that I I've so enjoyed this audio today.
I have to play it one more time.
This is Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant talking about why the the market for beef.
I mean we're
Coming close, he was asked to see beef at $10 a pound.
Why is it?
And here is his brilliant explanation.
The beef market is a very specialized market.
It goes in long cycles.
And this is the perfect storm.
Again, something we inherited.
And there's also, because of the mass immigration, a disease that had been
We've been rid of in North America, made its way up through South America.
As these migrants, they have brought some of their cattle with them.
They brought
some of their cattle with them, guys.
Over the fence, through the tunnels.
I did not see people bringing their cattle with them.
When I heard caravans that were coming to the southern border, now I'm imagining Billy Crystal and the rest of the cast of City Slickers driving them up toward the border.
How did they avoid the cattle wrestlers along the way?
I don't know.
I mean, we have to invade that US.
beef market, I guess, it's always it's that or the the Oh, we inherited this.
No, you didn't or it's a really long cycle.
No, it's not.
And so I think you almost have to when you're talking about political conversations with your friends, you don't want to mock them, for example, and you don't want them mocking you.
But
I
feel like you have to look for these silly moments.
And at least share a laugh because you know they're not buying that.
They don't seriously think cattle are coming across the board.
So you find the little things that you can laugh at.
Lord knows Democrats have said things as well that you go, yeah, I'm not going to take ownership of that.
That person's on their own.
know, it was easy
about?
That's why their parties look so boring.
Yes.
Yeah.
Or now, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a rite of passage here.
It's, it's just a way of life.
And while you also didn't have, you know,
so much mass media that talks about it.
There's the comment sections and everything.
And I had somebody mention, oh, as Tony from Ashland up on YouTube says, I don't think face to face is enough.
So many people are terminally online with not a lot of friends.
We need to figure out how to reach them online as well.
That's a whole different thing.
The anonymity of comment sections, I feel has been one of the most toxic things in our society, not just our politics.
Yeah, well, that's a good point.
That's
There's an awful lot of people just throwing stuff out there anonymously.
So I think, yeah, I think the raining that in pretty much, I think we're finally kind of getting control of the commentary that follows the story.
But still.
I still, you know what, I go to the comments.
I have to say, when I see a story, I go to the comments because there's some really good observations made within that comment
section.
That's the problem.
You have to wallow through the cesspool of stuff.
But you want to because when somebody's got something that is genuinely insightful or genuinely funny, like about the Scott Besson comment, scroll down a little bit and there somebody has used AI to make a picture of a cow looking out an airplane window sitting in first
is
something to see.
We are talking to John and Gordy.
You can hear them weekdays six to eight on ninety two seven WMDX if you're in the Madison area or off the civic media app as well.
Guys, you get the, you know, the the Packers have where they got next.
Oh, the Vikings.
That's always fun.
Yeah.
I love that because Vikings fans think that, you know, their biggest rival is the Packers and they get worked up for it.
And it always kind of bursts Vikings fans bubbles when they realize, well,
Our biggest rivals actually the Bears.
It's right.
It's not you
Yes, they do.
Because of that game
whole mix?
Seriously, let's get I mean.
bring the college football rules in or do a shootout.
I don't care how you do it.
Ties are just the worst, worst way to go.
You guys are pretty good at this.
You ever think of doing this more often?
I think we're doing it.
You know what?
We might just do it in the afternoons as well.
Why don't you?
Why don't you?
Yeah.
Come on.
Come on back in a little bit later today and we'll that way folks all around the state can hear from you.
You
right.
Sounds good.
bringing the cots.
We're just going to let these guys go.
Wouldn't that be the next challenge with AI?
It's not just we don't know who's making comments in the comments sections.
Are they bots or not?
But how much longer till somebody taps me on the shoulder and goes, yeah, we've put enough of your voice in the machine.
Now you can go.
Yes.
o'clock.
Yeah, we'll be
I thought it was a miracle when disc jockeys could finally what we call in the business voice track.
They can do all the snippets.
You can do a three hour or longer radio show and do the intros and outros.
Now
there are times when somebody puts a wrong thing in and suddenly you
come
out of, you know, the Beastie Boys and say, well, that was Barry Manilow.
Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often.
Not as often now.
But maybe you should.
Maybe we need radio stations that play Beastie Boys and Barry Manilow more often.
I think that's sad for nobody ever, not even AI or a thousand monkeys at typewriters.
John and Gordy will hear you later today and then again tomorrow morning in Madison.
Thanks guys.
All right.
Thank you, Pat.
Thanks.
All right.
We will see you later.
All right.
Still ahead, we're going to be talking to State Senator Jody Hammers-Sinneken about the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program.
Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Krightlow from Up North News.
Follow us at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Nice to have you back here.
It's a Monday morning, November 17th, just about 823.
I'm Pat Crichtlow, State Senator Jody Habers-Sinneken, joins us in less than 15 minutes now.
You can read what we do at Up North News over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
You can sign up for our newsletters there.
In this morning's newsletter, Ellie Bordeaux writes about a Wisconsin city where an annual book drive has a goal of acquiring 2,000 books for distribution to children and raising funds to buy even more beyond that.
wasn't weren't those the days when I'd get yelled at not for too many screams not for too much TV not for you know a tablet or a phone was like put the book down and go outside and touch grass now we'd love to see more of that but to do that we've got to get books into the hands of our kids and so book drives like the one we talk about in our newsletter are sorely needed and there's also a link to my story in today's newsletter
The discussion that we had last week about candidate for governor and Washington County executive Josh Schoeman and his proposal for quote unquote reforming elections, which includes getting rid of the state elections commission and replacing it with a single elected politician to have power over state elections.
and getting rid of absentee ballot drop boxes.
God forbid that voting be convenient, especially when there's no evidence that there's anything wrong with drop boxes.
We're just getting rid of them because Donald Trump told us to say that.
But that's Josh Schoeman's proposal, and we've got a link to it in our newsletter.
Sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And if while you're on the website, you could head right to our new website, our web page.
upnorthnewswi.com slash mornings.
There you can sign up for our newsletters.
You can subscribe to the show as a podcast through Spotify.
You can also read the latest stories that I've put together up on our website, all in one handy dandy page again, upnorthnewswi.com slash mornings.
Let's see, I wanted to get to a couple of other things that we haven't touched on yet before we have our next guest come in.
For example, last week,
in the Milwaukee suburb of Cudahay, there was a proposal for a wheel tax.
And we have discussed wheel taxes in the past.
Wheel taxes have technically been, you know, legal, been allowed for decades, but communities did not implement them because they were getting enough aid from the state to maintain roads and things like that.
Of course, with this legislature, which lives to pass the buck.
We see that in all the school referendums, you know, by starving our public schools at the state level, they make local school boards out to be the bad guys and say, well, you guys can make the people hike their own taxes if you want.
Well, the same thing is happening in our municipalities now with this wheel tax by, again, bringing state aid to a trickle compared to what it used to be and what the state's needs are.
They're now saying, well, there's this wheel tax on the books.
You can impose that.
And a couple of few dozen communities have started to do that.
And now there has started to be pushback.
And in Cudahay, the Common Council eventually voted against a new $50 wheel tax, a tax on automobiles in order to raise money for the roads, the bridges, the potholes, all of that.
Transportation funding is tougher than it used to be because you do it from the gas tax.
People needed a lot of gasoline for their cars.
There was enough state aid coming in and that that would do it.
But now cars are more fuel efficient.
They use less gas or their hybrids or their electric vehicles that use no gas at all.
And you have state aid that has been uh attacked shall we say by this republican led legislature that
cities find themselves in a crisis for their budget overall, but especially for things like road maintenance.
And so that is the school equivalent of increasing property taxes is to impose or increase a wheel tax.
Now folks in Cudahay pushed back and the city council listened to them and that's fine.
That's that's how things are, you know, supposed to work if they feel like enough people are opposed to their idea.
But I do hope that somehow the message got conveyed to these folks.
Their beef is not with their city council members.
It's not.
Their beef is with their local legislators, if they are Republican, who have continued to vote for state budgets that do not adequately fund our cities and our public schools and everything else to the level of it should be.
You look at the stuff that they have zeroed out.
We talked most recently about care for homeless veterans.
But that's not the only thing.
There was the case in expanding broadband and that the Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee of the Legislature zeroed that out because they said, well, federal dollars are coming in anyway to expand the ability to have high speed internet statewide.
Well, yeah, that was meant to be a supplement, not a replacement for your share of the funding.
but this particular legislature, if they see any other way that some place else is ponying up the funds, they look for a way to essentially, well, be lazy and shirk their responsibility and say, look at us, look at how we are trying to hold the line on taxes.
And in fact, we have in this state a tax burden, a state and local tax burden as a share of, as a percentage of personal income.
That is actually very low.
But that's not something that Republicans should be taking a victory lap about because we're now paying the price for it.
We're seeing that increase in local taxes, in wheel taxes, in property taxes.
And that hits everybody even if they're of lower incomes.
Whereas when the state was funding it, it was feeding it through the income tax.
The state income tax is a more progressive system so that folks who are very wealthy
pay a slightly higher percentage and can afford to.
But we've got folks leading our legislature now that would just assume pass that tax burden on down to the local level and to people with lower incomes because, well...
They got to take care of their friends.
Some of their friends probably want to turn some of Wisconsin into strip malls and golf courses and other places where you can't do outdoor recreation anymore.
So we're going to talk about trying to save the stewardship program with State Senator Jody Habers-Sinneken coming up right after this.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Nice to have you back here at 835.
I'm Pat Critello up here in Chippewa Falls, and you can join us at 855-75 Civic.
Again, our question of the day, do you have a close friend who is your political opposite?
If no, why not?
If yes, how do you make it work?
In today's era of divisive politics, we'd love to hear from you.
Trust me, you have to be able to have these conversations.
And if there's anybody who really knows that,
It's an elected official who lives in what you'd call a purple district or a swing district.
That was certainly my case all those years ago up here and somebody else who knows a lot about that is State Senator Jody Habers-Sinneken who joins us as well and is going to talk to us mostly about the Knowles Nelson stewardship program and her efforts to save it against others who'd like to defund it.
Senator, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
Glad to be on your show.
Yeah, it's nice to have you here.
And again, we talked to you during the campaign as well, you know, about your district and, you know, this ability to have conversations with anybody, even when you don't see eye to eye on everything, but you have to be able to talk to one another.
Absolutely.
And the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program is just a textbook example of effort.
of a value in Wisconsin that enjoys broad bipartisan support with over 90% of Wisconsinites reporting that they support the program.
It's been 30 years of success, preserving hundreds of thousands of acres of land for conservation and for local tourism.
And across every county in Wisconsin, all 72 counties have enjoyed benefits from the Knowles Nelson.
just a stewardship program.
So if we cannot have compromise here, if Democratic and Republican legislators are not able to work this out, it really is demonstrating that that things are broken in the legislature.
Yeah.
And so last week, a committee in the assembly deadlocked six to six on a Republican authored bill that might
prevent the program from lapsing next year.
The program by way of background, and by the way, you can read a lot about this in the Wisconsin Examiner, WisconsinExaminer.com.
Great story by Henry Redmond last week about it.
And he talks about the program that allows the Department of Natural Resources to purchase and conserve and maintain public lands.
It does enjoy broad bipartisan support.
But a, what I would say is a smallish group of Republican lawmakers are now saying that
there's too much land that's being saved and that they in their mind they see it as a hazard to the local property tax rolls.
And so they either want to put limits or zero out future purchases entirely.
So
Let's take that on senator first off this notion that you know too much land has been pulled off local property tax rolls I feel like they're trying to make the case that all this land is being turned back into primeval forest with no recreation or no public access or something and Land in the Knowles-Nelson stewardship fund is still very valuable land in Wisconsin
Absolutely, it is prized and cherished land again
local communities, tourism, conservation groups, all of them are very much want this land to continue, but it's not just acquisition in the future.
It's also that we need to invest as a state to maintain the quality of those lands, the access, the facilities on those lands.
It's not one and done.
It needs to be an ongoing commitment to maintain and identify opportunities.
that would be their initiative for Wisconsin I enjoy and to conserve.
We're talking to State Senator Jody Habersenekin about the Knowles Nelson stewardship program and bipartisan efforts to keep it going although there are definitely disagreements as to the degree on it.
And now let's get into something here that it's a little bit in the weeds I'm going to acknowledge but it shows part of the problem with our device of politics these days is
we've talked in on the show about how some of these committees have the ability to like anonymously hold up stewardship projects and the state supreme court basically said you you can't keep doing that and that's led some republicans to say well let's write into law something specific like in this case the the bill that would say
that there needs to be legislative oversight, a legislative vote, before the DNR can acquire any land at a cost of $1 million or more.
Senator, does that risk politicizing each individual land purchase through Knowles Nelson?
Absolutely.
Even though I've been a senator for just 11 months now, I already see how bills are held up through the process.
to require any acquisition program needs real time to move in a real estate setting to go through the entire legislature, the assembly, the Senate, go through the entire vote before the government.
That would be any deal.
This is not practical and real.
Yeah, and so the the bill has been there was a suggested amendment to lower that threshold You know from a million dollars to 250,000 there was a Democratic proposal a separate bill this summer and then offered as an amendment last week that would create an independent board Nominated by members of both parties to oversee the program
outside of the legislative meaning partisan political process.
And obviously you're a proponent of making this a more independent question for stewardship and not a political one.
Absolutely.
That was a bill that I introduced this summer with the full support of the Democratic caucus.
It was very much intended to be a starting point for negotiations.
from the original Kurtz, which is the Republican proposal that was introduced back in May.
It was to get the conversation started.
And in fact, we actually had productive conversation with members of the legislature across the aisle.
But again, those few are holding up a process that we need for the public situation to, for example, the Senate, we need some staff shall all hearing
on bills now bills.
He could have self from back, but it's already here in November.
We need to hand Senate committee financial institutions and supporting heritage call a hearing.
So the public can weigh in and that we can move forward on trying to reconcile the bills that are out there to be able to reauthorize this program.
This week, we have a hearing in that very committee on the crane hunt, but not Knowles Nelson, which enjoys so broad public support, we really need to make sure that our hearing still calls a hearing for Knowles Nelson.
Senator Rob Stashholt is a Republican from the new Richmond area, Western Wisconsin, in the 10th district and has an office number of 608-266-7745.
And again, you're just looking for, you know,
respectful requests to put the Knowles Nelson, the bipartisan stewardship bill, have it get a hearing in committee, right?
That is correct.
That's part of our process.
The Republicans control, as you know, both the Assembly and the Senate, they get to decide what bills receive a hearing and what bills advance.
This bill, these Knowles Nelson bills, the Kurtz bill, my bill regarding reauthorization,
they deserve a hearing, and that's how the legislature must be beholden to that requirement.
Which we have discussed many times on this program is not a given.
It used to be that you'd see a bipartisan swath of bills that would get a public hearing out of committee, and it's a sign of the times that you have to fight so publicly just to get a hearing on this bill, not a vote, just a hearing.
Absolutely.
And the people of Wisconsin deserve that.
They deserve a legislature that will actually work together in a responsible manner.
And for a program like Knowles Nelson that enjoys such broad public support and delivers so many public benefits, not just now, but into the future, we deserve that.
The piece in the Wisconsin Examiner has a quote from Charles Carlin, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Nonprofit Land Trust Organization Gathering Waters, who told the examiner that
The last week's committee vote, when it deadlocked in committee, meaning a couple of Republicans voted with Democrats, shows that the only way to save the program is with a bill that can get support from both parties.
And he says there is ample room for compromise across the aisle, but that deadlock committee vote demonstrates that no reauthorization is going to move forward without buy-in from both parties.
The hearing should motivate legislators on both sides to come together and work out a compromise that keeps Knowles
working for Wisconsin and Senator Jody Havish-Sinneken.
I don't doubt that you backed that 100%.
100% Gathering Waters has been such an outstanding voice in the legislature, explaining the importance of compromise and moving forward in a way that maintains the integrity of the legislative oversight that involves the
The entire legislature is not applicable, but we've offered an ability to negotiate other versions of oversight, including a stewardship council that includes legislators and conservation groups and the DNR and many other groups that could really provide that necessary oversight that would actually lock down
acquisitions.
And I apologize.
I've left out a key detail from this.
Why are there these competing bills on saving stewardship?
Because Republicans in the legislature stripped it out of the last state budget.
It goes unfunded unless something is done with, you know, the current fall session.
Senator, is that right?
That is correct.
If there is no legislative action, if Knowles Nelson is held up by a failure to call a public hearing,
in the Senate or it stays tied up in the assembly, then this Knowles Nelson program will come to an end in the spring.
And folks have to realize that it's very hard to resuscitate something that goes into hibernation like that.
And for folks that might not be familiar with saying, well, what's this Knowles Nelson?
Where does it come from?
It's named for a Democrat and a Republican, former governors who, you know, understood the value of
land conservation in our state.
This is one of the most historically bipartisan things that has happened in the Wisconsin legislature over the generations going back to the 1960s.
Yeah, it is remarkable.
And I very much have been committed from day one, even before day one, on creating those conversations across the aisle, working in a bipartisan fashion, as I mentioned from the outset, the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program.
It's by definition, as you just stated, is bipartisan, and it serves people across the state in a nonpartisan way, really just helping families and individuals enjoy our beautiful states outdoors.
Yeah, from on Facebook, our friend Chris Handbook Boyle puts this comment.
Thank you so much for this discussion.
Many bills need hearings, but Democratic bills are being ignored like Knowles Nelson, like the enrollment caps on private school vouchers and more.
We spend so much time, Senator, talking about the state budget that we sometimes sell short the fact that in this fall session and maybe for a little bit early next year, there's still a lot of critical things that need to get done and are at risk of not getting done.
I know, and I share your viewers' sense of frustration.
It's almost, it weighs on me that we have all these bills.
People might not even realize how many are just stacking up that have not received a hearing, that have not been able to move to the Senate floor and the Assembly floor because of inaction by leadership.
And that is what people need to understand is that they have control.
They get to decide what is heard.
And that's the only way that the public can weigh in and that we can as a state move forward with bipartisan bills like Knowles Nelson.
And that's where, again, State Senator Rob Staffschult of New Richmond holds the key to scheduling a committee hearing on a bipartisan bill to save the stewardship program.
Senator Jody Habers-Sinneken, thank you again so much for joining us and giving us background on this important issue.
Well, I thank you very much and I appreciate your show.
A great deal.
Thank you very much.
Jody, take care.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
You too.
All right.
When we come back, we'll have some final news and notes from up here in Lake Ossota.
We'll talk to you, Jane Mattener.
Find out what's coming up for Mattener on air.
Weekdays from 9 to 11, Jane Mattener and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Kreitloft, here up north.
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, let's wrap things up here at my end for Monday and get set to hand the baton over to Jane Mattenair and Greg Bach from Mattenair On Air.
which you can hear weekdays 9 to 11 across the civic media radio network chain.
Good morning.
How are you, gentlemen?
I am great.
Good to see you.
It is a sunny Monday, at least here in southeastern Wisconsin.
So
we'll take it.
I guess we got a little.
Messy weather coming in overnight.
Apparently.
And it's fun to watch up here in the Chippewa Valley.
The meteorologists are really kind of, you know, hedging because we're we're right at the northern edge of what might happen or might not happen.
Yeah.
So they have to they have to have to six seven the whole thing, you know, right?
Right.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
You guys not when I do that.
You guys not doing that, dude.
So, yeah, apparently some folks might get, you know, an inch of snow or something like that, which made it all the more important, Jane, that you and I and all these other homeowners got out there and did the last of the landscaping and the window washing and the leaf raking and everything.
And you and I and Dr. Lierly earlier today, we're all, we're all so satisfied with ourselves right now.
I'm telling you, I worked outside on Saturday because it was so nice out.
And like you said, Pat, everybody in the neighborhood was either leafing, you know, getting rid of the leaves and putting them, putting them into the curb.
And I spent about three hours cleaning out all my flower beds.
And after I was done, I just wanted to sit in the yard and look at it.
Look at
all the things that are gone.
Look what I did with my newly sharpened clippers.
I feel
So accomplished.
That's that's exactly what we do is we do the same thing here.
We're just like, we're just kind of looking like as if we've got like 40 acres or something like no, no, but this this is it.
Parker has a different point of view on
that.
You guys just kind of make me glad that I'm never going to be able to afford a home.
Don't worry Parker those 50-year mortgages are gonna be here
You will have very affordable monthly payments.
I'll be dead
before I'll be done with it But
just
just think you get to pay property taxes on that property for all the years that you won't own it you lucky guy I
had for now two weekends in a row.
I've gone out to see I've got nieces and nephews in the
South Metro of the Twin Cities as their kids had birthday parties.
And you know how this is, you see it in Milwaukee as well.
You can see the edge of the metropolitan area.
Yes, there's farm and then there's subdivision.
And then you come back, you know, a month or two later and the subdivision has continued to creep out.
And that's you can in this Rosemont, you know, Farmington, Lakeville area, you can literally see the edge of, you know, the of the development.
And they're in two different places in that area.
And in one case, the homes, I mean, they're nice homes and everything, don't get me wrong.
But I mean, they're kind of built on a, not a hill, but an incline.
Right.
And you can just see, I'm just looking and I'm like, do I tell my niece?
You don't want to be here if you get seven, eight inches of rain.
It's all coming right in because I had that issue for the first several years here, whoever.
built this house, didn't slope the ground away from the house.
They slope the backyard toward the house.
And so we'd get terrible flooding
if you got
bats, if you got anywhere from like five inches, which, you know, does happen here sometimes.
Yep.
And I don't, I, I, I don't know if, um, if I could go through that again, I think, I think I'm just gonna have to die in this house.
I can't go through checking out a home, thinking about everything that could go wrong.
I have remodeled this thing.
You're just gonna have to carry me out of it.
you.
Well, I've been again, but I think you and Sherry did such a smart thing all those years ago is when you bought because the one thing that we're not going to make anymore of is Lake property.
And so you did a very, very, very smart thing, and I think staying in your house forever until you come out.
is a great idea.
We laughed though.
We talked about this over the weekend.
In fact, we laughed at what idiots we were back then because there's a thing.
We didn't buy it because it was on the water.
We didn't buy it because it was on the lake.
Sherri being an OBGYN and she was setting up practice.
So you had to live within like five minutes of the hospital.
And so basically you drew this circle around St.
Joseph's Hospital and we looked at houses just in that circle and
we got to this one, and it was not our first choice, but it was the one that eventually we're like, yeah, this'll do.
This'll do.
We can make
it work.
Yeah, because there
were no steps down.
It's a very steep bank down to the lake.
Right.
And we just, you know, we had a four-year-old and a six-year-old, and we were glad there weren't steps there.
And it wasn't until like years later, we're like...
Hey, we bought a house on a lake.
We were really smart.
We were just thinking from a work standpoint.
We were just so young and dumb.
But it worked out for you.
Oh, it really did.
Fantastic.
Yeah, don't get me wrong.
That is fabulous.
Yeah, I'm very happy about that.
But it was entirely by circumstance.
And now I'm at an age where you see those property tax bills come in.
And you know, there's this line that you cross where it's so fun to see your house go up in value and go up in value and go up in value.
It's like, wow.
But then you realize I'm not selling this anytime soon, so you're watching the property tax number go up and up and up and up and up and up.
All right, well, I guess that's that's the price you pay to be a homeowner.
That and all the landscaping.
Yes, that's in the landscaping for audio sorbet today because the other thing folks did over the weekend was put up Christmas lights.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
And so
I saw a whole bunch of places all lit up already.
So we're going to talk about on or off.
until after Thanksgiving on whether or not you put up your Christmas lights.
And in the first half hour, I know you mentioned this.
We're gonna talk about cows jumping over fences, apparently.
There's an influx of foreign cows that we didn't, we weren't even aware of, Pat.
Caravans of cows.
Caravans
of cows jumping over the fences and going through the tunnels.
Where's been all the footage of this?
I'm scouring everywhere, but
yes,
did you see some of the memes?
Yeah, so the cow on the airplane sitting in first class looking at the window, it was I
like the cows on the shoulder of other cows so they can get over the wall.
Sign of the time again, our old discussion on political conversation with friends.
You got to find the things you can laugh at together.
Yes.
And if they can't laugh at that, if they really stick to, oh, they're totally smuggling the cows in.
That's when you know, maybe we need to spend a little less time together.
That's a sign.
That is a good sign.
Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, Matinair on air coming up next year on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jane, thank you so much.
Have a great show.
Thank
you.
See you later guys.
Yep, see ya.
Parker, thank you so much.
We'll do this tomorrow morning.
I think we should.
I think it'll be fun.
I hope you join us as well.
I'm Pat Krightlow from Up North News, a part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news network building a more informed, engaged, and representative America.
Enjoy your Monday.
We'll see you tomorrow morning.
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