Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Tuesday April 1st, 2025.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here.
And part two, we're going to talk to our friends from the South of County YMCA.
We have Baxter and Jacob joining us looking forward to that.
Right now, got another great tag team in with us right now.
We have Don Desarce with us from Wisconsin Rapids Parks and Recs.
Don, always good to see you.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
And we have Jake Klingforth with us.
Wisconsin Rapids Parks and Building Super Intended Jake.
Your first time joining us.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
I know we are talking in our little bit in our pregame.
We've wanted to do this for a while.
Shane, one day I'll be in and here we are finally getting to bring in here.
Appreciate the time.
And right away, as I do this Don and put her on the spot every time she's in with us,
thank you both.
We appreciate you.
Appreciate what you're doing in our communities and all the work you're putting into it.
Greatly appreciate that.
And really do appreciate being able to talk with you.
Don, about the Wisconsin Rapids tree sale that's coming up.
I want to let everybody know about this one.
Sure.
So Sue Winch has helped us with this tree sale for several years.
Yeah.
She started back in 2015.
There were a few years off.
I think COVID time.
Yeah.
That's the word of thing.
And then we got it started back up last year.
So she worked for McCain Nursery.
She was a representative there.
Until she retired.
And then she wanted to continue helping the community.
And for the future by helping people plant trees.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It reminds me immediately one of my favorite quotes.
You know, we don't plant trees for us to see them grow.
We plant them for the younger generations too.
Right.
And it's a big part of what we're, you know, what we do as a society.
I think.
And certainly what you guys do.
And you're individually in your jobs in many ways.
It's just trying to make this land in this area better and better going forward for the next generation and some of that.
You have one of my favorite things over there.
Though you have some random facts for us about this.
I cannot wait to hear these done.
Well, I think this one is probably the best one.
So over the years that this trail that tree sale has been going on.
It has been instrumental in planting 619 trees in the community.
Whoa.
Which is a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't expect that number.
No.
It's a big number.
Now, you guys would know this better than me, of course, but many remember the hard storm we had a while back.
I cannot think of the word storm for some reason.
Storm we had and knocked out a lot of our trees.
It did.
So this is even more noteworthy.
I think when you think about that and the factor.
Yeah, it does.
It helps out.
So some of the other things about the tree sale is these trees are sold at cost.
So we don't make anything on these trees.
We just want them in the community.
They are grown in Waterloo, Wisconsin.
They're very high quality trees.
Which also means since they're grown in Wisconsin, they're very hardy for our region.
And I think noteworthy as well as we, one of our mantras around here buying local supporting local.
That means the whole state.
That means supporting Wisconsin and Wisconsin companies and businesses.
Here we are able to do that with this as well.
This is Waterloo, Wisconsin.
So I'm not sure where that is.
Oh, that's it.
Every time I think I know every city in this state, I hear something like that.
And I'm like, I don't know where Waterloo is.
I don't know.
I may have even driven through it, not known.
But a shout out to Waterloo.
We shout them out.
Yes.
So the other thing that Sue wanted us to mention was some of her favorite trees in this sale.
She's hoping that more people are going to be buying Japanese tree lilacs and the pink sparkles and spring snow crab trees.
Those are so beautiful.
They are.
Those are really cool trees.
Yeah.
I want to get into what the tree sale is, especially for those that don't know what it is.
But journalistically, I should mention, I'm actually in a tree chat group.
There's a handful of us that just love trees.
And whenever we see a cool one, we send a picture to each other and everything.
I grew up in the city.
And then we had one tree.
But no, sir, I didn't grow up around trees.
So I have kind of a late love for these, for nature, for trees, and supporting these causes and different things that we can do about them.
And I think that, you know, whether you grew up with a forest in your backyard or you're like, I did.
It's one of those things that I feel like it's in such a device of time.
Who's against trees?
Who's like, this is a cool thing to be able to talk about and support.
And certainly a really unique, cool idea with the community tree sale.
For those that haven't heard about this before, guys, can we tell them what this is exactly?
So yeah, I can touch a little bit on this.
Thanks.
Just a community tree sale that you can either buy it for the city.
So you can buy it for us and we can plant it.
Or you can buy it and plant it at your house or the neighbor's house.
Whichever you please to do.
Also with these trees, they are all bare root.
So another modern burlap, bomb burlap.
So they're easy to plant.
They're lightweight.
And just.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When it comes to say, I want to put one of these in my yard or I want to put one of these in maybe somewhere on a street.
Or down, you know, right in front of a spires or something like that.
Can you do that?
Is there a way to find out where you can put trees or is it really up to your imagination?
Yeah.
There's some things that we'd have to look at.
Like we don't want to plant something like a sugar maple below power lines.
You know, it'd be like a one of the crab apple trees.
So we kind of pick up the location of the plant and it's just easier that way.
Because there were the ones that are going to be maintaining them.
And also with these trees that if you wanted to do like a memorial plaque, you can get a plaque with the tree and put it in a park somewhere.
That's a beautiful idea.
So that's a great way to honor somebody you love.
And certainly a very long time way to do that with these trees and everything.
There's a lot of creativity involved in this for the people out there that want to do something like this.
I think that that part of it is really fun and unique to this too.
So I'll be honest, I don't know that I've ever heard of anything like this before.
Other than when we've done it before, of course, here in town.
I've lived in a lot of places and I've never heard of anything like this.
Do you guys know exactly where the idea for this came from or where the roots of this came from?
I'd see what I just did there.
I did not mean to do that.
I'm so sorry.
Now I was just about to say where it stemmed from.
That's not even better.
Any origin story there we go.
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
Well, wherever it started, I think we can all agree came from a really good place.
And it started well before those storms I mentioned before,
but how noteworthy and how foresight they had of something like this.
Because we know whether it's our ag industry or some of our timber industry
or just the fact that storms happen and trees go down or trees get older and they die off.
I don't know any community that couldn't benefit from something like this.
And certainly with ours where we have such a love and a value of our nature
and our climate and everything around here.
You mentioned the different types of trees.
Dawn, you touched on this a little bit.
Can we let people know a little bit about that about the different varieties of trees people can pick out?
Sure.
So we have postings on Facebook and I believe the posters on our website as well.
But we have two different crab trees.
So one is pink sparkles and the other is spring snow.
Those are $45 each for a five foot tree.
Fall fiesta sugar maple was a huge seller last year.
Like we sold out.
I think we had to sub in a different kind of tree because they actually ran out completely.
So that one is an eight foot tree, $100.
I think it's really nice and orange in the fall.
So it's a really pretty tree.
Japanese lie lock.
That one is a really nice tree as well.
It's really pretty white, big flowers on it.
And that one's like an eight to ten foot tree that you'll purchase for $100.
And then my favorite which we have several in our yard is the Canadian hemlock.
That's a really nice tree.
That one is an 18 inch tree and that one's $30.
Yeah.
So then they call us.
They call us who winch and we do the pickup then at the city garage at 1411 Chase Street.
We put all the trees on the garbage bag with mulch and we saturate the roots.
So they're ready to get picked up and planted within the next two days, hopefully.
I appreciate it, Jake.
Are you breaking down before about some of the process of this?
Because anybody out there, especially people that may not take advantage of this great sale that's going on in the fun of this.
And they're just listening, well, we're planting these trees just anywhere.
Well, that's not the case.
You guys know what you're doing and you're going to make sure that the location, the type of tree, all of these factors work out.
In fact, I imagine that's part of the reason the trees that were chosen were chosen for the sale.
Is that right?
Okay.
So putting that aside, again, just the creativity for the people taking advantage of this sale.
I don't want to take a second.
And I got to imagine that this can be a lot of fun for you and your team as well to be being a part of this.
It is.
And we hand out a pamphlet with each tree.
It kind of gives instructions on actually how to plant it.
So that helps because some people just haven't ever planted a tree before.
So I know something cool that we did last year.
Kind of a little off the subject here on topic.
But we did do, we created our own gravel bed nursery for the city.
And it's a grant that we received from the DNR.
And it's we got bare root treats from leaves inspired.
And we plant them in a gravel bed nursery in the spring and in the fall time we plant the trees.
And what this does is just expands the roots and just makes it a healthier tree.
And it's actually a really cool workout awesome.
I heard of that before.
Yeah, that's really unique.
That's very cool.
Wow.
Really, we plant them in road, not road base, but a pea gravel was sand.
And then we have a filtration system that goes through and waters them three times a day.
Wow.
That is really awesome.
Yeah.
That's a really cool thing.
A gravel bed nursery.
Hmm.
I got to look into that.
I haven't heard of that before.
Very neat.
That's really cool.
That's a great use of that grant.
Yeah.
They're doing that.
Because again, so much of this, there's so much fun about this creatively.
And trees are beautiful.
It's making our land a lot prettier and some of these things in our future a lot prettier,
if you will.
But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the environmental impact this makes as well.
I researched this and I just double check turns out trees are really good for us.
They kick out this thing called oxygen that we kind of need.
And in no area has really ever been, we got too many trees around here.
Like nobody says that.
It's a positive thing.
And that part of this, I don't want to get lost in the shuffle.
Because I think that that is one of my favorite things is when you can see something fun and creative for a community that also does good.
It reminds me a little bit of being able to teach your kids something that they don't realize they're learning something.
They're just having fun.
I feel like that.
I feel like this is that kind of thing when you're able to do something like this.
When is the, how long is the sale going on?
Monday April 14th.
This one we're closing because we need to get the orders in and then the pickup will be at the city garage like Jake said.
Yeah, sometime in early May.
Yeah.
As far as payment methods is there are certain types of payment that are expected or you can you can take all kinds or.
So if you contact Sue Winch, she would take a checker cash.
If you come through the parks department, we can do cash checker credit card.
We can do that over the phone if that's easier for somebody or if they want to mail a check to us that works as well.
We just need to have payment at the time of order.
And we need to have contact information for the person, preferably an email address, because that's how we're going to contact everybody to let them know when the trees are going to be there.
And just a reminder, because again, I didn't want to move past it too fast.
That memorial plaque idea is a beautiful idea, especially Jake, what you mentioned about it, one of our parks.
And some people just being able to walk past it, whether you are that loved one or somebody seeing that that, you know, would note it.
I think that's such a great honor, such a great way to do something like this and a beautiful idea.
This whole thing is an awesome idea.
Again, the 2025 community tree sale is going on right now.
You have until Monday, April 14th to pick one of your trees out and reach out to the team and let them know more.
Don, how can they do that? How can they find out more about this?
Probably the easiest is to just give us a call.
That's at the park department, 715-421-820.
We'll get that info out there again before we wrap up today, but I thank you both very much.
It's such a cool idea and thanks for really diving into this subject with us.
I do want to talk about a couple of other things before we wrap up.
And again, I have no journalistic integrity here.
The zoo is like, I can see the zoo from here. I love that place.
I took my kids there. I love that zoo.
And I want to talk a little bit about the Wisconsin's rapid zoo and their new season coming soon.
So yeah, the zoo is a cool place. It's very unique for such a small town.
And the cool thing about it is free.
I'm happy probably don't even have a zoo.
We do has been here since 1949.
Yeah.
It's been here for quite some time.
47.
Oh, 47. Wow, even longer.
Man, that's cool.
And I appreciate everything you just said there, Jake.
Because I don't think I think it's always noteworthy in reminding that and appreciating that.
Whether you're new in town or you're been here your whole life, it's a nice reminder and appreciation of it.
But it's also noteworthy that that you mentioned how long it's been around.
It's been around that long in part because it's taken care of very well.
There's amazing people that have worked over there over the years.
And this community loves that zoo.
It's not staying open if it ain't being used just to be blunt.
So we appreciate people using the zoo.
People going over there certainly are community members and everything.
But I want to send a shout out to a lot of the nonprofits and a lot of people that use the zoo for birthday parties.
And I know the United Way, I'll be over there this summer and the reading.
So there's so many different uses for the zoo that we're taking advantage of when we're using it for.
The animals love it too.
You may not be able to tell, but they love watching us.
I maintain the zoo animals, love watching us as much as we will watch them.
I can't prove it, but I feel pretty confident about that.
Is there anything new to the zoo this year that we can look forward to or preview to people?
Yeah, so hopefully last year we added the Prairie Dog Exhibit, which was a big hit.
Again, all these exhibits that we've been adding in the last couple years have been donated funds.
So this year we are hoping to be constructing our river otter exhibit.
And I don't know when we'll be starting the progress.
But hopefully very soon, I know we are going to be getting a new playground at the zoo,
because that's been around since 1991.
And then along with that, we insulated and we are making Helen's house a usable year round.
So drywall, insulation, furnace, all that stuff so it can be rented 365 days a year.
The river otter exhibit sounds so cool, so exciting.
And there's something so unique to me and cool about it, about it being right there in our river being right over here.
Just a little ways away. I think that's really cool for kids.
And just adults, anybody do really enjoy that last part.
Oh, sorry, I got excited.
That last part you mentioned there about Helen's house being available 24-7.
Or year round, that year round.
That is such a great idea.
I had not heard about this.
And just really, really love that idea.
They got some great people over there.
They have some fun things that they do, certainly in the summer.
The idea and the opportunities that could create year round.
That's really unique.
You're around renting.
You're on maybe programming with encouraged, encourages a lot of our programming with us.
So yeah, we're excited about that.
Just going to be a little brainer.
Let's make this usable year round.
And as Jake mentioned right away, that this is all capable and done because of the funds and the grants
and the money that is donated from our community members and everything.
I want to send a shout out to all of them for investing in our community like they do.
Yes.
When it comes to these exhibits and some of these things going on,
we certainly don't have a time frame necessarily for them.
But be on the lookout for them.
We want to remind people of that.
And while you're waiting for those, there is plenty to see over there.
I want to second what you were saying about reminding people that we have a zoo.
But also, if you haven't been there in a little while, there's something new all the time.
There are kangaroos over there, you guys.
That's awesome.
When my daughter was little, she's in her 20s now.
But when she was really little, I took her over there and they had lemurs.
And we had been to the Milwaukee or Madison Zoo.
We had been to a couple of places she had never seen lemurs before.
To this day, that child loves lemurs.
It's just one example of how that can happen for a kid.
And what it could spark in a kid.
And just even a simple love of an animal that they don't see every day.
There's so many advantages of having a zoo here in town.
And I know there are even more out there that we're not even thinking of.
So do all your nonprofits, all your businesses out there, encourage you to reach out and be a part of things over there.
And certainly to all of our community members out there, get ready.
Because do we have a set date for when the zoo will open yet?
Yes, I believe it is May 25th.
That's what I thought I saw.
Memorial weekend, yes.
That's Saturday.
So make plans right now.
Get ready for it because we're very excited.
It's coming up sooner than we think.
Although Mother Nature tries to throw us a curveball here every once in a while.
It'll be coming a lot faster.
A new program that we're also doing.
I think it's June 19th.
It's going to be the Blue Whale exhibit.
So this company comes in.
They actually have a 60-foot inflatable blue whale that check and walk inside the whale
and see what the whale looks like from the inside out.
The set up tables inside of a Helen's house with artifacts.
And so I think it's 10-30 to 4-30 June 19th.
Very cool.
Jake, I know this is your first time hanging out with this, but you already get it.
You saved that for last.
That was awesome.
I cannot wait to check that out.
It's gonna be a big hit.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's one of those things too.
I know for, I mentioned this on the air before, so I know a lot of our listeners feel the same way.
It's one of those things that I have to do in my life to see a whale in person.
Here is a great first step.
It's a great first step to do with that and everything.
I can check that out.
Thank you for that, Jake.
I appreciate it.
As we're wrapping up, just got a couple of minutes left.
Did you want to mention T-Ball and Coach Pitch registration?
That is going on right now, Dawn?
It is.
It is.
We still have some space left in both of those programs.
We also are looking for coaches for those programs.
That starts on June 11th and wraps up on July 16th.
And then we have a special practice with the rafters on the 28th of July.
We're talking about that a little bit.
We have the rafters on the other day and we're talking about how excited they are and the players are.
Similar to what I was saying with the animals and everything before you guys.
Exciting as this is for the kids, the players love this.
I think they might enjoy it more than the kids.
Oh yeah, they have fun last year.
It's such a blast.
It's such a fun opportunity for them.
And it's a great opportunity for you out there.
I know I talk to people almost every week about wanting to put into the community.
I also know that some of those individuals aren't able to financially.
But if you're looking for ways to impact your community, be a part of things.
Volunteering or being a coach or something like that.
We have so many different programs that are looking for good people to just, you know,
take some time out of your day and invest that time into this community.
It can mean as much as dollars and cents.
It can go as far as that.
I know that when I was a kid, there was a baseball program I wanted to be a part of
and they didn't have coaches, so it never happened.
There are things that can happen if we don't have the coach.
Now, I don't think that's going to happen.
But just giving an example of this and why it's so important that we get community members to volunteer
to be a part of these programs and reach out.
And not only that, but the fun of this.
It's contagious being around kids and being a part of these things.
It's so much fun.
Well, you hit around the head.
I mean, every program that we run can only run because of the volunteers.
So it's not a lot to ask, but it is.
Yeah.
That's a good way to put that.
Yeah, without volunteers, these programs don't exist.
And that's not only us.
It's, you know, rice of baseball, rafters, football.
It's all volunteers and we appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
So if people would like to volunteer, if they would like to find more about the community tree sale and some of this,
Dawn, one more time.
How can they find out more about this?
They can give us a call at the office at 715-421-824-0.
Yeah.
And keep in mind you guys.
You can also email them if you have further questions or other things you'd like to know.
Parks Department at wirapids.org.
Parks Department at wirapids.org.
Dawn, always good to see.
We'll talk again real soon.
Jake, get used to this because we're bringing you back, man.
You did a great job.
We're bringing you back.
We appreciate you both very much.
Thanks for the time, guys.
Thanks for having us.
And we'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM WFHR.
We are locally grown radio.
