It’s safe to say that this year has been a lot different for the 73rd Alice in Dairyland, Julia Nunes. In any normal year, she’d be out meeting people, doing interviews in person, going to breakfast on the farm, talking to schools, and everything in between. Even though she can’t as much as she’d like to this year, she’s making the most of it in other ways. Nunes is already halfway through her reign as Alice and will soon be searching for the next woman to take over the position.
Nunes is currently staying busy working from her parent’s farm in Chippewa Falls. She said that everything she does now, for the most part, is online and as far as she knows, it will be for the foreseeable future. I was curious to know what a day looks like for her balancing Alice in Dairyland and helping on the farm. “Occasionally I’ll get a call from my dad saying he needs help, so I have to run outside…other than that it’s usually wake up, working on anything I can on the computer whether it’s preparing for a TV interview that I’m shooting from my parent’s basement or doing radio interviews like we are right now,” Nunes said. She added that another part of her day is responding to emails, setting up interviews, and pretty soon she’ll be preparing for applications to come in for the next Alice.
Even with all of the craziness of 2020, she’s at least been able to check out some pretty cool farms over the past six months. She’s gone to a brewing company, a potato farm, cranberry farm, a goat dairy, and many more places including a Christmas tree farm. Nunes had the opportunity to cut down the first official Christmas tree in the state. “Only took me 45 seconds with a hand saw, pretty proud of that,” she added. Unfortunately, she was going to bring the tree home but figured it was too long of a drive from Walworth County up to Chippewa Falls with a tree strapped to her car. Probably good she played it safe on that one. Don’t worry, she found the tree a good home in Madison.
(Pictured above: bottom left – Katrina (Nunes) Anderson, top left – Geneva Nunes, bottom right – Julia Nunes, top right – Alexa Nunes)
While Nunes has her hands full promoting Wisconsin agriculture, she makes sure to have time for family traditions. One of those being finding the perfect Christmas for the Nunes household. “We go every year to our local farm and pick one out. I love getting a real Christmas tree. I think it makes the holiday season that much better,” she went on to explain how they pick out the perfect tree, “I have three sisters, so we all kind of run around and try to pick the best one and my mom usually gives us the yes or no.” She joked that her sister Geneva has a big head right now because their mom picked her tree to cut down for the house.
During the holiday season, Nunes has been busy talking with people about the Something Special from Wisconsin products out there. Basically, it’s another great way to support locally within the state and it helps us realize how many great farms are in Wisconsin. The website makes it easy to find local dairy products, wineries, and any other ag products you might be looking for. Overall, it’s an easy website to help you check off everybody on your Christmas “to get for” list.
Since there are about seven months left of her reign as Alice, she reflected on what her favorite memories are so far. “I feel like there are so many things I haven’t done yet and I don’t know if I will get to do them. One of my favorite parts that stick out to me is just when I was able to go tour different farms and meet the farmers…and see why they work so hard every day.” Nunes said that’s what she had the most fun doing so she hopes to get back out there before her time is done.
Once again, Julia Nunes is the 73rd Alice in Dairyland. You can listen to the full interview on the podcast page. I’ll be checking in with Nunes again in a couple of months.
