Hey, good morning.
Welcome back.
It is 8.06.
It is nice to have you along.
It's a Wednesday morning, December 17th, 2025.
Parker Olson producing Things in Madison.
Earl Ingram is standing by, and later this hour,
the final chapter of Pigeon Quest with our friend Melissa Kay from our Civic Media Station in Wisconsin Rapids.
Melissa visited with us a lot on Wednesday mornings earlier in the year and along with sharing local headlines also her own
quest to secure a rescue pigeon.
And yeah, we learned rescue pigeons are a thing.
And Melissa told us all about that.
And so we're going to get a little update on Lee Lu and how things have worked out on that front.
Before we wrap things up for today, Melissa Baldoff, who has our climate check, will be joining us as well.
And again, a reminder that we will be having a lot of highlight shows from 2025 starting next Monday for the two weeks of Christmas and New Year's with a little new content sprinkled in there as well.
So you'll want to continue listening well after we wrap things up here for the full three hour live shows after this Friday.
Earl Ingram is going to join us in a sec from the What's Going On podcast with Earl Ingram.
And we're going to talk a bit about better relations and understanding with our Muslim friends and neighbors.
But I don't want to, in any way, besmirch the segment with Earl.
So I'm going to share these ugly words ahead of time, and that way Earl can take it from there and talk about, you know, the angels of our better nature on his podcast.
But in the wake of
the attack on a Jewish gathering in Australia.
We heard some of the ugliest language from some of the biggest bigots in Congress, including Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Congressman Randy Fine of Florida, who again just basically said some terribly
heinous things.
Congressman Fine said that it's time for a Muslim travel ban.
Radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants and citizenship revocations were ever possible.
Mainstream Muslims, he said, have declared war on us.
The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America.
And then there was Tommy Tuberville from Alabama who said, quote, Islam is not a religion.
It's a cult.
Islamists aren't here to assimilate.
They're here to conquer.
We've got to, in all capital letters, send them home now or we'll become the United Caliphate of America.
Why am I sharing these ugly words with you?
Because there's too many people that get complacent about these kinds of things and say, oh, you know, things are fine.
So just some people say a few things.
These are members of Congress.
and I've said over and over again if I could I would have those bigots deported in a heartbeat and I would bring in 10 other people from Somalia or anyplace else who in Mexico wherever who would work so much harder than they would and have such greater understanding and build our country better than those two clowns ever could.
Earl Ingham has been doing something about that and now having gotten the ugly words out of the way, let's welcome in Earl Ingham to talk about the what's going on podcast and the much better dialogue that he has about it on his program.
Earl, good morning.
How are you?
You know, I'm always fine, Pat, when I get a chance to converse with you because I think, you know, when you get to a point in your life where you start realizing that people who want to separate people.
the problem is with them, it's not with people.
And those hurtful and hateful words that were exposed by those congressmen, and first let me say that anybody who loses their life through the horrific man's inhumanity to man and what took place in Australia is not right is wrong, but to categorize an entire
group of people.
You know, we've had people inside of our nation who have committed atrocities towards American people, Americans.
And so we don't categorize the entire American population as, you know, we're all horrible and we all should suffer and burn in hell.
That's not what we do.
But then how do we turn around and categorize a whole group of people based on one person or two people who go off the rails?
One of the reasons why I wanted to do the podcast with the Muslims, especially the Ahmadiyya movement of Islam, they are a group of Muslims in this country who spend a lot of time, effort, and money.
trying to change and work with the issues that impact and affect the community in which I live.
I've watched them over the years, protracted over the years and the work that they do.
But for having Sakespat to categorize an entire group of people is one of the reasons why Jewish people suffered, unfortunately, the fate that they suffered from the Germans.
same kind of thought process.
The reason African Americans suffered the way they suffered in this country, same kind of process.
Pat, when do we break that?
And we have to do that individually in our own spirits and in our own hearts.
That's where it begins.
Without a doubt.
And so, Earl, you did an episode that's called Muslim Truths, and you were joined by, is it Ali Murtaza?
Yes, sir.
From a Muslim group in Milwaukee, talking about confronting stereotypes about the Muslim faith, and talking about encouraging listeners to basically build awareness, to promote dialogue, recognize the shared values.
And shared values,
is something that you and I have talked about a lot.
When I came into the legislature from a mostly rural district and the first people that I really got to know were legislators from the Milwaukee area and realizing that things that we had in common were some lower income communities where all kids needed was a good education and a fair break and create some jobs and you had
in a place where everybody wanted to throw mud at each other, you instead had us trying to build bridges and do things together, and it's no different than when we're talking about the religious faiths of our world, is that if we could put down the mud for a little bit and actually understand what we have in common, we could actually be productive members of society instead of contributing to all the slop that's going on out there.
No, Pat, it couldn't have been said any better.
because, and where we have to begin is in the mirror.
We have to begin looking at ourselves and ask yourself, am I being a part of this?
You have to change it.
I think Michael Jackson said it best, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.
Start with the man in the mirror.
This life is too short.
and to waste it on hatred and separation.
We've got to get beyond that.
And I was told, man, why would you run the risk of having or doing something like that?
And I said, well, it's not a risk.
And that's the problem.
Why is it a risk to have dialogue with your fellow human beings, Pat?
I don't understand that.
I've never understood that.
We weren't plotting an overthrow of the government.
We were having a conversation about what we have in common, and that's humanity.
Yeah, I mean, look, we want to work hard.
We want our kids to be safe and to get educated.
We want a government that provides us, you know, with certain freedoms.
That is not to say that we don't have different viewpoints that might be rooted in our religion, but the same way we might have different viewpoints that are rooted in other cultural values or things like that.
And there's such a difference between the people that want to divide
based on religion versus the people that want to learn more about our shared humanity.
And there are people like that in Milwaukee and in other places around Wisconsin just as they are around the world.
And so yeah, I won't be a bit surprised if you get a little blowback to a show like this because it's a lot easier for angry people to go out there and send a nasty note or something like that when there's, you know, 10 or 100 other people who just quietly say,
Thank you.
That's cool.
Thank you for doing a show like that.
You know, Pat, believe it or not, I've been married to the same woman for 43 going on 44 years.
We don't always agree, right?
I mean, that's it's it's it's human nature.
And so, you know, we've got to heal the wounds and we can't fix things unless we start within ourselves, within our own spirits.
I want to say to you before we get out of here, man, it's been a great experience to have conversation and dialogue with you.
Again, as someone who doesn't know much about...
Northern Wisconsin who's lived in the state my entire life.
I've been able to basically through the prism of listening to your show off the air at times and others get a perspective that is open and honest.
And you don't always get that.
So I don't know who decided to bring us together, but whoever did, they did a wonderful thing and I appreciate it.
Well, as do I, Earl, because again, I think one of the things that you really value in your shows is dialogue or discourse, you know, just getting
getting to know each other and so much of what is on radio and basic cable today involves people just basically talking
past each other.
And one of the things that, you know, I noticed about you from the very beginning was this whole notion of having a constructive dialogue, which means sometimes you shut your yap and you just listen to people for a while, and then, you know, ask them the questions that you think are going to help your listeners understand.
As your podcast says, what's going on?
So I mean, you and I both joke off the air about, you know, the kind of advancing in age.
a little bit here, but whether it's on the radio or through podcasts or whatever, I hope that both of us get to continue for a long time having these kinds of dialogues with important people that can educate our community more.
It's just a real honor to be doing that alongside you.
I will certainly concur with you on that and do everything within my power to continue our dialogue and conversation that I think is critically important.
that, you know, we have these kinds of open dialogues and the forms that you certainly have access to make that possible.
Well, thank you, Earl, again.
That means a lot.
So before we go, we got a minute left here.
So, I mean, we heard all about the... I learned so much about turkey prep from Thanksgiving.
What's the big plan for Christmas?
Well, you know, I'm going to do a lot of different things.
Listen, I didn't realize how much I enjoyed cooking.
And I really do.
I found it later in life.
It's pleasurable.
When you can, because you have to love it, right?
And I've learned to love making people happy with what you produce.
And so when I'm cooking, I put myself and my love into it and give it the best that I can.
to hopefully satisfy people and there's nothing more important in life than that Pat, satisfying people.
Absolutely.
You can satisfy him at the table.
You can satisfy him through a show like Girls, the What's Going On podcast, head over to CivicMedia.us, click on shows and get it there.
Earl, it's been an honor.
Thank you very much.
Happy holidays to you.
You as well.
Take it easy.
Bye-bye.
Take care now.
All right, still on the way.
Melissa Baldoff has our climate check and one more edition of Pigeon Quest.
Before we wrap things up on a Wednesday morning, I'm Pat Critello from UpNorth News.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
sneaking up on 823 now on this Wednesday morning.
It's December 17th, 2025.
Melissa Baldoff is here for a one more weekly climate check.
And you know, there's there's been a common theme throughout all of this, not just about the climate itself, but about your wallet and the impact on it.
The main
the main takeaways are that, you know, there are things that are costing you more money.
There are some things that are still out there that can cost you a little less money.
But by and large, Melissa, this, this has been a year where the climate of your wallet has taken a beating almost as much as the climate itself because of the change in who's in the White House this year.
And, you know, this is one of those things where, you know, this was avoidable.
This was a, we told you so.
This was a, you know, they effed around and now they're finding out, right?
Like this is, what is happening is exactly what everybody cautioned would happen.
that we would take a system that was already under stress and make it a whole lot worse with the actions that this administration has taken.
So we are seeing exactly what we thought we would see.
And it's unfortunate that the people who are paying the price are just folks who are already feeling pinched because
you know, grocery bills are higher.
They're not getting any relief on their horizon on their health care costs going up.
And now they're going to be paying a whole lot more for their electric bills.
Yes, they are.
There's a new report by Climate Power, a climate advocacy organization noting that electric bills have increased 13% this year on average nationwide.
in part because of that mega bill that Trump signed, which, you know, removed assistance for a lot of cheaper and cleaner energy sources while funding new tax breaks for oil and gas industries.
And I mean, Melissa, we saw it, there was this very specific point in the campaign, where Donald Trump said to all these oil executives, you should give me a billion dollars in campaign contributions.
And I'm going to give you so much more back.
And
That's what happened.
And that's what happened in terms of the, you know, the rollbacks that we've seen this year and the lost opportunities.
Like you said, none of this is a mystery.
This is exactly what we thought was going to happen.
And I believe that the, you know, the estimates were that before the bill was where that cost would go up about 11%.
So seeing 13% confirms that the experts were right.
Turns out they knew what they were talking about.
So we know that utility costs are higher, but we're also losing a whole bunch of jobs by removing these clean energy sources as options.
But we know that we're given big tax breaks to those oil and gas companies that
enriched Donald Trump, one thing I thought was really stood out to me from the study was about the projects that were canceled or delayed since Trump's election.
Those have led to a loss of just under 25,000 megawatts of planned energy generation.
which could have powered more than 13 million homes.
So that is a really significant loss of planned energy generation that could have been supporting our grid and helping more homes afford their energy bills.
So it's really unfortunate that we saw such a loss of
clean energy.
Melissa Baldoff is here with our weekly climate check on the positive side of things.
There are still ways in which dollars are available to help people with things like home energy assistance.
The Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program has begun making payments again to help out a whole lot of households.
So affordability of course is as much an issue as ever and more so for families.
But at least we know that, you know, some Wisconsin households are getting the assistance to be able to keep their houses warm this winter.
This is a really important program.
And it's one that helps people really save a significant amount of money.
Just just under 200,000 households will receive assistance to pay their utility bills, which is really significant.
And, you know, the
season for this officially began on November 1st, but the shutdown meant that Wisconsin didn't get those funds right away.
But the program is going now.
So far, more than $40 million in payments have been made to support more than 63,000 households.
But the applications are still open for people to get them in if they need that support, see if they're eligible for this.
The eligibility is based on a number of factors, including household income and size.
what the energy costs look like in the home.
But if people are curious if they're eligible, they can go check that out at energybenefit.wi.gov and find out if they're eligible and what they can do.
And then another thing I just want to point out too is that the energy efficiency rebate
program that we have here in Wisconsin through Focus on Energy, that is still open, that is still available, and people can get support.
to find out ways to make their home more energy efficient, which will also reduce their utility bills.
All right, Melissa Baldoff is here with our climate check.
We will continue the conversation in just a little bit here.
And then later, Melissa Kay from our civic media station in Wisconsin Rapids will talk to us a bit more about her quest to secure a rescue pigeon.
And then of course, tomorrow we have Joseph Peckian with us.
And then Friday we wrap things up with our regular wonderful week in review panel and Dr. Kristen
as well.
I'm Pat Cratlow from UpNorth News.
We'll be back in just a bit.
Nice to have you back here on a Wednesday morning.
It's December 17th.
I packed quite a little up here in Chippewa Falls.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison.
Melissa Baldoff joining us to talk a little climate, talk a little politics as well on this Wednesday.
Melissa, as we've been talking about climate issues and the impact of this administration, it feels like we've been playing a lot of whack-a-mole.
in that you've got a president and an administration that are trying all these different ways to cut things that are beneficial.
for our energy usage, things that are beneficial to the climate, and some of these things he gets away with, but then other things, you know, courts are able to kind of reel things back in, including a recent ruling by a federal judge throwing out a Trump order that would have blocked the development of wind energy.
So, I mean, sometimes it's like two steps back, one step forward, we have to take the little court victories where we can get them.
Well, I'll say it's so wonderful to see a court actually doing its job and being that check on executive power that they are supposed to be because when we look at the US Supreme Court, they seem to just be willing to rubber stamp.
anything Donald Trump wants to do.
But obviously, they don't take up every case.
They can't do everything.
So it is really encouraging when we see the court at lower levels doing their jobs and being that check on
the executive branch when they are doing things that are unconstitutional, unlawful.
That's right.
This is Judge Patty Saris of the U.S.
District Court for Massachusetts who vacated one of Trump's day one orders that blocked wind energy projects and deemed that executive order unlawful.
Massachusetts was one of several states involved in this saying that they had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore wind and have now protected those investments against the Trump administration's
unlawful order.
Now, again, this isn't the end of the road.
It could be repealed from there, but it really gets to the heart, Melissa, of, you know, something we've talked about here that, yeah, the federal government has a lot of power.
It can do a lot of things for good or for bad.
But because of the way our government is set up, you know, states have wide latitude to do things as well to make their own investments.
And there's times when the federal government has to leave the states alone and let them do the things that they want to do to, you know, create jobs and cleaner energy sources.
Um, you know, as the costs go up, um, you know, we know that we need more energy sources and states should have that
um ability to to determine what is going to be the right fit uh for you know for their their constituents so um you know this is I do think a little bit of a bright spot for us and um you know it's it's good to see uh that
Melissa Ball Officer, and I've really appreciated being able to visit with you to talk about climate issues.
And then sometimes we can take a little extra time and just have you put your political strategist hat on and talk about things that are in the news.
And you've worked in the state capitol.
I've certainly worked in the state capitol.
We've met a lot of people that are either formally a chief of staff or informally a chief of staff.
It's a very important role.
When you see, you know, the kerfuffle that's going on in DC right now, because Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, had not one, not two, but 11 on the record interviews with Vanity Fair posed for some glamour shots with other members of the administration and said all of these things that about her boss and about other cabinet members, none of them make them look good.
And now they're all in
denial, but not actually denying any of the things because she said them on the record.
I don't know.
I don't know any chief of staff in that building in Madison that would do something so shall we say ill advised?
Certainly as a communication, somebody's been a communications director and strategist.
I would advise against this.
So this is really, I think, incredible insight into what is happening inside of this administration.
And some of it really shows that what people assume is correct is correct.
So I think it's quite the peak
uh behind the curtain into into what's going on um and really you know I think she said what she was really feeling and um quite the quite the uh interview quite the amount of information that came out of it um so yeah this is something else
well and you and I both have either been in positions or been around people who've been in positions to say
I don't think that's a good idea.
Whether it's about talking to a particular reporter or saying something out loud.
And so it's just, it's so unique to see this kind of circumstance here.
Of course, only, only this administration could do something in Vanity Fair like this and then seem to think that they can just say, well, it was a hit piece.
Well, no, it's 11 interviews recorded on the record.
It's, it's Wonderland, you know.
Yeah, and so much more that we'll continue to get talked about for a while, and then maybe it'll blow over, who knows, but in my...
frame of mind, every peak behind the curtain helps a few more people understand that this is not necessarily what a lot of Americans voted for.
Melissa Baldoff, thanks for a little of your own professional expertise.
And thanks again for all the climate checks.
And we'll talk to you and Joseph Peckie next week.
Do a little end of the year look back on things.
All right.
Thanks, Melissa.
Have a great day.
right?
You bet.
Um, so as I, as I just look at this, if you missed it, these are some of the things that Susie Wiles said.
Susie Wiles said that her boss has, quote, an alcoholic's personality.
Now, keep in mind, Trump doesn't drink, never has, but her Susie Wiles' father was the famous sportscaster Pat Summerall.
who also was a notorious drinker and so she said she recognizes that same kind of personality, a person who has a view of himself as someone who can do no wrong.
I would contend it maybe actually works the other way around that she's got the personality of the child of an alcoholic or in my case the grandchild of an alcoholic where you kind of overlook all of their faults because you want them to
to love you.
You're always trying to please them.
And I think of everything she said that might explain why even though she's offered all kinds of advice that wasn't taken, she sticks around.
She said that she warned Trump not to pardon the most violent of the January 6th rioters.
She described Russell Vote, the budget director, the guy behind Project 2025 as a right-wing absolute zealot, said that JD Vance is in fact a conspiracy theorist, criticized Elon Musk for killing the international aid programs,
that had been keeping children and adults alive in impoverished countries around the world.
She acknowledged on the record that Trump is engaged in political persecutions, abusing the judicial system to pursue criminal charges against political enemies, despite no crimes being committed.
She criticized Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, saying that she had botched the Epsteinfiles case.
And still,
After this came out, after the article came out, and some people said, well, no, she didn't really say things like that.
The Vanity Fair writer, Chris Whipple, said, um, here's the audio.
These were recorded interviews, 11 of them.
And other people in the administration talked to Vanity Fair, and then they posed for the, you know, the fancy photographs that Vanity Fair is known for.
And the
The response from MAGA World has been to attack the report and to attack the writer, even though they could not point to anything that was not factual.
Tom and Hartford on the text line says it seems to me it was done on purpose, it was done to make people seem more real, more human, that humans make mistakes.
Perhaps, but I mean, if the mistakes are political persecutions and releasing the violent January 6th insurrectionists, I mean, that's not just showing a human side.
That's actually showing, in my estimation, a less human side.
And it doesn't really compute that they would do this on purpose for any reason other than to get the bad blood out of the way.
At some point they said, you know what?
We all hate each other in this White House.
But we're here.
We're in power.
We get to do things.
So even though we hate each other, let's get that out of our system.
Let's have a public bloodletting.
And then everybody can laugh at us for a day or two.
And then we'll just go back to doing the things that we like because we get a big fat paycheck.
It makes us famous.
And it helps out, you know, all of our big donors.
That's the only explanation that really makes sense to have something this dysfunctional purposefully shared on the record with a reporter.
JD Vance said the lesson is that they should give fewer interviews to reporters.
Because yeah, being more secretive is good for democracy.
This is my view.
These are just bad people.
These aren't people where we just have a fundamental disagreement on politics and policy.
We talk about this a lot.
We should be able to have conversations when we disagree and find a way forward.
But this isn't about that.
These are people who are going along with a man who chooses tyranny over freedom, who is seeking to beef up an aristocracy, someone who has broken untold promises to create jobs and prosperity.
If any of them had a shred of honor, they would have used the opportunity of the interviews to express contrition and resign.
But they know that if they embrace unified denial and simply attack the person who held up a mirror to them, they will get past this.
Whether Americans allowed to keep happening is up to every one of you.
and every one of your conversations that you have with family and friends, especially those who have voted for Trump once, twice, maybe even three times, but may not vote along with him next year when it comes to the midterm elections.
Now, when we come back, we'll visit with our friend Melissa Kay from our station in Wisconsin Rapids, which I add parenthetically marked its 80th anniversary this year.
And I think the official anniversary was last month.
It was so nice to spend some time there this summer as part of that celebration.
So Melissa tells us from time to time what's happening out there in the WFHR world in the heart of Wisconsin, but also in her own life as well.
We have got to catch up on Lelou the Pigeon.
And we will do that coming up in just a bit.
And then that's followed by Matt Nair on air with a couple of great guests coming up later this morning as well.
Amanda Latham from the Rural Roadshow weather and Eve Galanter, founder of Civic Games.
That's all coming up with Greg Bach after nine o'clock.
I'm Pat Critewell.
You're up north.
Oh, it's back.
We're back and so is Melissa K from Wisconsin Rapids.
Melissa, it's so good to see you again.
It is so good to see you both.
Oh my goodness.
You know, like every work site, sometimes conditions change, working hours change, things like that.
So we don't get to visit with Melissa nearly as much as we used to, but we get to now, which is pretty cool.
So how's life in the heart of Wisconsin?
You know, it's busy.
It's good.
We have tons of snow right now, which I it's great.
And now we don't need anymore.
We have a nice cover.
I've shuffled.
I've flung it all in new places and it can stay there.
Yep.
We'll find out more about Leluy in just a sec.
But another thing that you were doing was community theater and you you have a new project right now.
Do
you?
There's a new show coming up.
It's called Morning Sun.
And it's just three women.
There's multiple characters, but there's only three women in the show.
Three generations of women.
And it's just kind of like the experiences that shape their lives and the different characters that come in.
So I play the grandma.
And then I also get to play like three guys and a couple of kids and a couple of different women.
So it's very fun.
It's in the small
theater at WRCT.
And this is not children's theater.
It is not.
No, this is very mature,
mature content and adult language.
In other words, escapism for people that have to be nice on the radio all the time.
Yes, January 2nd and 3rd at 7pm at WRCT in their small theater.
Okay, let me
tell you, if we sell out, we can put it in another show.
Oh, there you go.
And what's the what's the website to go to
WRC theater.org.
as you like to say.
Theta t r e. Yes.
Org.
Mm hmm.
Okay, sounds morning
sun.
And morning sun is the name of it.
So take a look at that at w r c theta dot org.
A lot of fun.
January 2nd and 3rd.
I
had a time to tick and I got the memorize.
Now you just got to finish memorizing those lines.
You know, how's your holiday season?
You have a busy one ahead of you.
You know, I'm gonna actually be not busy for a change, which is cool.
I'm just hanging out with some friends for Christmas Day and then planning to try to catch up on my house because it's a good thing this is all you can see right now.
Thank you for cleaning up the camera range.
Yes, you're
welcome.
And I didn't actually, but this covers whatever that is over there.
So we're
fine.
Well, that's fine.
But they're behind you is the cage.
I should say the cage, the home of Leeloo, the rescue pigeon.
I
mean, it is a dog kennel cage, whatever you want to call
it.
It's a
loving home.
Yes, a loving home.
All right.
Remember how I said they don't escape?
Yes.
Well, they escaped.
Oh, no.
Uh-oh.
Yep.
They
decided yesterday.
They knew I was coming on your show path.
So I guess we needed an update.
That was exciting.
And they flew out and I had to put their pigeon pants back on again.
Oh, no,
the pigeon pants are bad.
Wait, the
pigeon pants are on.
I don't know if we have talked to you since they've
gone out.
Yes, I've had to put them on three times before yesterday.
And then they wouldn't fly out of their cage area because they knew they'd have to put the pants on.
Don't like the
but they they must have forgot.
You know, we lose that the first one to think that pants are a torture device.
normally get you in trouble if you wander out without them.
Only so many of us can winnie the pooh it as it were.
So for folks that need a little rewind on this, Melissa, how did the saga of Lelu, how did this all begin?
When did you first hear about...
rescue pigeons.
I wanted a pet.
I have to have a pet that lives in a cage.
Okay.
And so I decided on bird because I didn't want a reptile or a fish or, you know,
fish in a cage, it just does not hold water the same.
But yeah, I get the point.
All right.
So you want, so you wanted a
bird.
So I researched and pigeons and doves are the quietest like pet birds you can have.
I
figured
that's good.
I'm on the radio a lot.
Yes.
So then I talked to my landlords because pigeons do have to come out of their cage every day because they have a big wingspan.
They got to do the happy flabbies to get their exercise.
So I got that approved because I told her like when they're out, they will wear their pigeon pants.
And she says, OK.
Because it's you and I do believe your pigeon would wear the pants.
You can do this So then I found the Great Lakes pigeon rescue in Chicago.
It took months, which as you know took months.
Yes.
Yes.
I was gonna get robbed.
I love
Yes
And then we made the transfer and I brought Lee Lou home in July But
but Lee Lou was not originally named Lee Lou
Well, their full name is Leonardo Louis paint bucket
paint bucket is what they
came with originally.
Yes.
Okay.
Now these are these are birds that would otherwise maybe face euthanasia or you know, suffer from a lack of care.
Smaller cage for their entire lives.
Yes.
Yes.
And they
said Lelui would never fly.
Lelui flies all the time now.
How long did it take though from the time Lelui got home until Lelui started flying?
You know what?
I think it was mid-October.
Yeah, so it was it was a while.
Yeah,
but then I recall you were so pleasantly surprised.
I was.
I don't know
what I'm gonna do about my ceiling fans in the summer.
Oh my.
Yeah, let's not have any accidents that way.
So this has been a happy experiment.
It has.
So then the question becomes, does Lilo get a roommate at some point?
You know, I don't know if I'm gonna like that and that's always a risk.
If you get them a partner that they don't like and then the two of them don't get along, then what?
You know what, I'm glad to hear that because, you know, you hear the stories about cat ladies and pretty soon something happens and there's 40 cats
and I don't want them to one day just discover you in there with 40 pigeons.
Covered in pigeon poop.
Covered in pigeon poop and everything else because the pigeon pants can only hold so much.
They really can.
So folks, again, over the next two weeks, we're gonna have a whole bunch of highlight shows, including Parker stitching together the entire saga.
Of.
Oh no.
Oh no.
I wasn't ready for that pet.
I wasn't ready for that pet.
There
we go.
So you're going to want to be listening for that over the next couple of weeks.
Melissa, you are a joy.
Thank you so much for giving us a little epilogue on this and we'll talk to you again soon.
Thank you, Pat.
And good luck.
I'll miss you.
Thank you very much.
You're not going to get rid of me that easily.
Just in the early mornings, Parker, thank you.
Thanks to all of you for being here today.
Let's do two more of these starting tomorrow.
Enjoy your Wednesday.
I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News, the Wisconsin Outlet for Courier Newsroom, a pro
Democracy News outlet.
We'll see you 6 a.m.
here up north.
