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Karl Perlach: “I was just walking around my yard. Last time you interviewed me I had eliminated the big pile of dirt and had cleaned up my front yard. Slow but sure. I’m lazy.” (I doubt that.). “I was just out walking the dog. I moved here five years ago and I am slowly renovating my home. I’d like a picture by my art work with my dog. Burt. I made the picture behind me with the extra lumber, repurposing wood. Thats a big thing out in Colorado, the mountain scenery. I just made it in my spare time out of old barn wood. I just came home from a walk and I was going inside to have a late lunch. That’s my day. Not much of a winter this winter so it was really weird hiking out in the woods with no snow. But I have been going back and forth to Colorado so I wasn’t here a lot this winter as usual. That’s where I moved from. That’s where I got all the wood for my fence. Free wood, repurposed. I made garage doors. I like Ely. Where I came from it had a big boom of a bunch of rich people. Very rich people. I just got tired of it and it was nice to come to a small town again. I am going to set up scaffolding maybe today. I have to start working on this side of the house eventually, in warmer weather, which is typically a little warmer but not like it was a week and a half ago. But like I say, I was about to go have a late lunch because we were out on a hike with a happy dog. This summer I will finish the fence and work on the back of the house. I’ll be outside this summer getting the outside done.”
Jeremy Wendland: “I’m doing a couple of quick shopping runs. I need to get some things before the weekend. I live in Ely at the moment. I am kind of like a temporary resident. I don’t know if that’s what you call it. I have only been here a couple years but I’m probably only going to be here for a couple more years. Ely is ok. It’s not my favorite but I don’t have any complaints really. I don’t have much to say about it, to be honest. It’s kind of like a lot of places I have been now. After I get done with this shopping trip I have a meeting at six, but that’s online. Most of the work I do is online. I do a variety of things. I just kind of consult on things, like, it’s just kind of all over the place. It’s not very consistent. That’s why I try to work a part time job on top of it. At the moment I work as a janitor wherever I have contracts. Currently it’s a couple government offices. The winter was really weird. Other than a couple weeks when it was really cold, it was very mild. The winter was very unexpected but it’s been ok. I didn’t really do too much this winter because I have also been dealing with some health issues. Nothing real serious. I just have to get it figured out. I’m still waiting on a couple procedures. I am not very good with things like this. I never know what to say... It’s been a cold week and this is the warmest it’s been all week and I am kind of surprised. If I had been trying to do this yesterday it would have been terrible. But today is not so bad.” (We had a nice walk across the park while interviewing.)
Brenna Kolstad with Red the dog: “I’m dog sitting today. I have my own dog Bruno and I just walked him and now I’m walking Red because the sun is out, but it is cold. I work at the Grand Ely Lodge. I am a hostess up there. I’ve been working there for about a year and a half. I moved up here with my girlfriend about the same time, a year and a half ago. We live right around on Conan so not too far. We got a cute little house. Just loving the community and loving the stuff in the ELY ECHO and think maybe one of these days I’ll get in there.” (Oh, so were you waiting for me?) “Yeah, I sure was. My girlfriend was walking the dog one time and she got a picture taken from you. So we have a picture put up on the refridge. I thought it was so cute that you guys do that. So yeah. Working up there and taking a walk. Saying hi to everybody that is out. It’s a gorgeous day! I was living in the cities before this. I grew up in the St. Cloud area. I was working at a job that was so sucking, at a corporate office and it was really bad and I needed to get out of there. My girlfriend applied for some colleges and one up here. She said, ‘I’m thinking of moving to Ely.” I said, “Where’s Ely?” She said, “South Canada.” “So we both decided to take a bold leap. We both quit our jobs and moved up here. And so yeah, that’s where we’re at now. Everybody has been so nice. The community up here is welcoming and opening and I think you can find anything you want to join up here. If you don’t have something, you can start something. There’s different organizations to join. Like I volunteer at the Food Shelf and the Wellness Center and stuff. Community is really important to me and stepping in. We have great neighbors and great people and since I work up at GEL I see a lot of the town. It is really nice to talk to everybody and get to know people. I just graduated in December myself, Social Science at Metro State down in the Cities. I was doing online classes. I started with Covid. I started online and stayed online all the way through. So I just love talking to people. I think the rest of the day is to maybe unwind, maybe do a little cleaning, and yeah, just kind of relax before the shift starts tomorrow.”
Samuel Nielsen, Alyssa Jones and Karsyn Foster: Samuel: “It’s been pretty good today. Not doing too much. Just chilling around. Just got out of school not too long ago. We were going to go to Jay’s car lot and just look around. See all those cars over there? That’s Jay’s lot. I like looking at cars. There’s some snowmobiles, four wheelers, over there. They got a majority of stuff. That blue one is old but it’s not the best looking. The inside is all torn up and stuff. The outside looks better than the inside. There’s one older car that’s going to be turned into a drag car. I was looking at buying it but I couldn’t. I’m just going to hang out with my friends and probably go look at some more cars. I’m in fifth grade.” Alyssa: “I’m going to do kind of what Sam said. Go look at some cars and just chilling. We are all in fifth grade. I like recess and I like hanging out with my friends and I like listening to music. “ Karsyn: “Today’s been pretty good. Got out of school a little while ago and have been hanging out with my friends since then. I went four wheeling this winter. I almost fell off. It was pretty fun though. We had sleds connected to the four wheelers and I was getting pulled around in the sled and I fell out of the sled. I don’t drive the four wheelers because the last time I did I almost crashed. I have been listening to music and playing video games and hanging out with Sam and Alyssa.”
