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[music] >>narrator: coming up on heartland highways, we meet loren hughes, well-known in edgar county, illinois, as the "bluebird man." loren has made edgar county the premiere

producer of bluebirds statewide! then it's off to sullivan, illinois, where 7th generation farmer mike durbin makes hand-made pool cues with intricate inlays. and finally we feature farrell farms.

this clydesdale farm has been in the family for generations. that's coming up so stay tuned! >>lori: funding for heartland highways is made possible in part by eiu's academy of lifelong learning...

providing all community members an outlet for their educational, social and creative pursuits. opportunities to learn new skills, engage in topics of interest, and explore new areas of learning. available for people

of all ages. more information available at 217-581-5114. >>lori: welcome back to another edition of heartland highways, we're so glad you joined us today. >>kate: this first story today is all about one

man's dedication to one species of bird. due to loss of habitat and competition from other species the bluebird population declined an estimated 90% between the 1920's and the 1970's. >>lori: needless to say

the bluebird was pretty scarce in this region of illinois, but loren hughes of paris illinois decided to do something about it. he's known to many in the area, simply as the bluebird man. >>loren: ah-ha you can get

a, you can get a good shot of this. [okay.] >>lori: nothing seems to put more of a smile on loren hughes's face than finding eggs or baby birds in one of his many bluebird nesting boxes.

this one, just across the street from his home in paris, illinois. [background talking] loren's interest in the bluebird started when he built a nesting box from existing plans, put it up and low and behold,

an eastern bluebird moved in shortly after. >>loren: i can remember when i fledged, that means the left the box. i, first year i fledged 12 baby bluebirds. and after i got involved in this, i'd say i got hooked.

i started enjoying it and i made myself a goal to make edgar county known for its bluebirds. and with the help of others i succeeded. and since 2004 we have been [bird chirp] we have been number one out

of thirty-three counties in illinois. >>lori: loren and his wife formed the east central illinois bluebird society, a branch of the north american bluebird society. but it takes more than a society to increase

bluebird population. it takes time and dedication, something loren is no stranger to. providing a nesting box or in loren's case, many nesting boxes that are properly placed for habitat and away from

predators is how you attract bluebirds. >>loren: the male, he will go shopping for the cavity, but the female has the final say where she's going to nest. and when the male is sitting on top of the box

shaking his wings, they call it, we call it wing waving, and that's love making. that's displaying to her that's love making. that they're they're fascinating birds. and they're territorial. if you put two boxes in

this part of the country if you put two boxes 15 foot apart the bluebird will put a nest in both and will take one of them. [laughing] they don't want any neighbors. you take, put up a box and bluebird will not

necessarily come back to that same box, but in most cases they do. but if you fledged 15 babies they come back to the same area. so, you can keep putting up boxes. and we've just built

the population. you have down years, like this will be a down year, really. but then they build back up. >>lori: on average an eastern bluebird will nest two to three times in a season, which runs from

about april to august. >>loren: the average fledge starting out in a season would be five eggs. sometimes when they have the second nest its four eggs. i've got a few that's only has 3 eggs in them. but sometimes they'll lay

five and five. i've had them lay 3 times. you can have third nests and it's rare, kinda. you don't get that many everybody counts a few. you get six eggs which we've always considered a premium. now, this year, don't ask

me why because i couldn't answer it, but i've had ten boxes with six eggs in them. >>lori: tree swallows will often build a nest in a bluebird box. loren says the way to tell the difference is the swallow nest will have

feathers and sometimes be infested with pesky mites. while the bluebird boxes are meant for the bluebirds, it's not uncommon to find wrens, sparrows and swallows making their home here. out in his workshop, loren

has created his own box design with a special feature to trap those unwanted visitors. >>loren: well, after using several different types of boxes and i still have boxes that's used, i decided that i was, i

liked the smaller box. now, i always said politics, religion and bluebird box size is three things you don't want to argue. >>lori: from march to august loren spends a few hours each day checking his bluebird trails which

[background noise] consists of about 300 boxes. a trail is made up of a minimum of 5 nest boxes at regular intervals about 300 feet apart. loren's trails are in city parks, golf courses and private property.

>>loren: the trail we ran today was 48 boxes and 29 miles. i drive totally about 160 miles a week. i'd hate to give up any trail because on that trail there's some precious friend. >>lori: while checking a

trail, loren records the number of eggs and number the number fledged. he also notes if another species has taken over the box. once the birds have left, the nest the box is cleaned for the next inhabitant. all of the data is

recorded and tallied at the end of the season. in 2012, over 2000 bluebirds were fledged in edgar county. loren's work in expanding the bluebird population was recognized in 2007 when he was given the state's

environmental hero award. and today, he can't seem to go anywhere in the county without people knowing him on a first name basis. he takes great joy in talking about bluebirds and helping others develop

their own trails that will contribute to the population. and while it's a lot of work checking 300 boxes a week, loren says it's what keeps him young. >>loren: it is healthy for you. you've got to stay active. i've seen people retire

and rock on the front porch and it ain't long you read about them in the paper. for being 84 and getting around the way i do, i've got friends in the 70s using a cane, you know. it's definitely good for you. you see a lot of wildlife.

i see foxes and baby deer and you just don't know what you're going to see out there. >>kate: for this next story we're off to sullivan, illinois to meet 7th-generation farmer mike durbin. while farming is one of

mike's passions, his other is custom-making pool cues. let's take a look at some of his intricate work. >>mike: i started playing pool in college, and i had a nice cue. went somewhere, the pool room to get a play some

pool, get something to eat, that sort of stuff. i needed a tip, and a guy put a tip on my cue, and i had a really nice thirteen millimeter ivory ferrule. when they came back it was about eleven, and i thought i could do that

good, so i started doing a lot of repair work mainly by hand putting tips and ferrules and such like on by hand. and as things progressed i bought some equipment. about 1994 i bought a lathe and decided i was

gonna try and make one. it's just kinda took off from there. took off in a big way, which is a good problem to have. if you had forty cues laying around that no one wanted that's big problem, but when i had to borrow

cues for this show that's a good thing. >>kate: that backlog comes from the business that developed out of mike's hobby, and when he's not busy making pool cues in sullivan, illinois, you can find him at his other

full-time job. >>mike: i have another job. we farm two thousand acres here, and i'm the seventh generation here to work here. i was born and raised right here where we're sittin'. in fact, in '97 i moved back to the farm when dad

was talkin' about retirin'. he retired in 2003, and now we're the boss there, too. >>kate: while mike is passionate about his farm, he also takes pride in the handmade details artistry of his pool cues. >>mike: i'm a traditionalist

when it comes to this. i like full point cues with veneer work. i like lots of diamond inlays. i like veneer boxes. i like mitered points. i also do some other stuff that's a little outside of the box there,

if you would say. but i just, a cue should have a certain look to it to me. it should have points. it should have some inlay work in it that's very precise and very nice, very sharp lines to it. basically, if i just think

of something, i go try it, but generally my mark is in the traditional. >>kate: once mike develops his vision, it's on to constructing the cues, which have been used by champion players all over the world.

>>mike: the first thing you do is pick out a piece of wood, and the forearm i generally start with a fourteen inch piece, and we'll bore five eighths holes through that. plug it with a piece of hard maple, and that is to

add consistency and warpage factors, to eliminate warpage. then we'll cut in any point work that we want done, and then there's generally some ring work that is at the a joint. and when i refer to the a joint

that's where the handle attaches to the forearm. they could be something very simple, just a phenolic ring. it could be just some double silver rings. it could be something very exotic.

it could be some major actual inlay work in those areas. then the handle gets attached there. take a hard maple handle. we'll bore and tap the three eighths sixteen to accept a piece of ready rod. this does two things.

it is a weight, and it's also a vice, as it holds the cue together. then there's a one inch long tenon and five eighths bored into the forearm. then there's a matching tenon that is on the handle. we cut glue reliefs into

all this area so that there's absolutely no chance of an air pocket. then that's all glued together with marine graded epoxy, and then we let it sit for overnight basically. then we'll turn initial

taper on it to flush everything up. and then the butt sleeve will be added, and it's basically is a cut of a dowel on the end of the handle, and things are slid over on that. >>kate: mike had

constructed cues using all kinds of wood, including maples, cocoa boa, and his personal favorite, ebony. >>mike: you go with an ebony and ivory cue, the black light combination, you're always in style. >>kate: some cues are

simple, while others include inlays and artwork, like this cue, which sold for eight thousand dollars. the process is long and tedious, but for mike, it's all about quality. >>mike: start to finish on

the average cue is about twelve weeks. most of the time it's hangin' on the wall behind me. as you can see, there's a lot of them there. we let gravity help us keep things straight, but anytime you cut a piece of

wood, it has a memory. it has a life, and it wants to go to a certain place. so it's gonna warp, there's nothing you can do to stop it if it wants to. and you just let it do its warpin' and you keep turnin' it out, and you

get to a point about six weeks in the process it either stays straight or it don't, throw it away and start over. and i like to work on about a dozen of 'em at a time. and i'll start a dozen, we'll get 'em to point

then we'll start another dozen. then we'll work our batches. some of 'em take, you know, the twelve weeks. some of 'em may take twice that long if you got a lot of intricate inlay work, cuz i do everything by hand. there's no push buttons

around here, no computerized stuff. so it takes me a lot longer to actually do the work than somebody that's got a machine. >>kate: being surrounded by pool all day made me wonder, so i asked mike,

do you play? >>mike: i do play, and i play on leagues about two nights a week in decatur. i have played in mattoon, but not on any of those leagues right now. i do play on the midwest 9-ball tour.

they get as close as to the st. louis area. a lot of tournaments in kansas city and oklahoma and those areas where tour runs. >>kate: mike also had a few tables in his shop that he manages to play on once in a while and do

some test work in clinics too. he says the most satisfaction he gets though isn't from playing the game. >>mike: actually, i find more pleasure in making a really nice cue, getting it to a top player, and just

watching him play phenomenal. i get more pleasure out of that now than i do even out of playing myself. and i do play at a pretty high level myself. but not that i don't enjoy the game, but it's really neat to watch somebody

take what you've made and go do things that are just phenomenal. it's really neat. >>lori: some of our favorite adventures were ideas that came from viewers like you. if you think there's a

place we should see or a person we should meet, let us know about it. drop us an e-mail at heartlandhighways@weiu.net, call us at 1-877-727-9348 or send us a letter to 600 lincoln avenue charleston, il 61920.

be sure to send it attention: heartland highways. >>lori: tucked in front of a row of trees you'll find an old wooden sign welcoming you to the farrell farm on a road that bares the same name. come along with us as we

meet up with a family in moultrie county that has given up a few acres of their land to accommodate a one of a kind breed of horse! >>kelly: the day starts early at farrell farms near lovington [come on. come on.],

but where this story begins goes back so much further in time. in 1850, joe farrell bought this 300 acre homestead from the u.s. government. the plan was to use part of this land to raise

horses, but not just any breed. grazing under a blue central illinois sky in the tall prairie grass this ground is home to nearly thirty clydesdales. a majestic, massive creature that can stand six feet high and weigh

more than two thousand pounds a tower of strength but tender at heart. >>phil: they were developed in scotland and uh, early on they were a work horse just like every other work horse and they then had a different

stride and could cover ground a little bit quicker so a lot of the uh, companies in the cities used them for delivery horses and that's kind of how the thing evolved back to budweiser because in in europe they

were using them to deliver beers and and groceries and meats and all of that sort of thing. and then when they were brought over here, well a lot of companies were using them that way, too. >>kelly: the farrell's

have a long standing relationship with the anheuser busch company. the partnership formed years ago when the famed beer brewer bought several clydesdales from the family. but the farrell's did more than just provide these

horses to anheuser busch rather than stay on the farm, a few members packed up and headed to st. louis for another career. >>phil: dad's claim to fame was he left the farm when my brother and i got out of school and became

manager of the budweiser clydesdale operation and was there for thirty years. and then my brother and i both worked there off and on also for a few years. no doubt the budweiser clydesdales are the most well known in north

america and a lot of other countries know them. uh, there are a lot of people that i deal with that's never heard of them. uh, we were the first, our family was the first to take the clydesdales, and several other breeds, to

china and those folks had never hear of clydesdales until they came here to the farm. well, at my job was i was with the breeding farm. as well as doing specials events for them. uh, sometimes one horse

sometimes a pair of hitched, uh just never knew uh the event. it would be like conventions and political functions and that sort of thing. and uh, you know, we'd take horses into hotels...or or just all

sorts of things. and actually, that experience years ago helped me get in contact with a lot of other folks of the busch family stature. uh the heiress of campbell's soup is one of our clients also and and

folks in that, kinda in that circle. >>kelly: and that's when phil turned his attention to breeding and shipping horses all over the world. farrell farm animals have gone to clients in pakistan, china, and canada,

for all different purposes. and as one could imagine the journey to get this cargo to their final destination is no easy task. >>phil: i got going in the import/export direction. back then nobody was doing it and more and more

horses were being bought and sold around the world. and that has just, uh, mushroomed basically the last 12-15 years is when it really has taken off. and it's more exports than imports. a lot of people in some of

these countries have disposable income. we've actually been shipping plane loads of horses, one or two a year to china. uh, it's about a 100 head we can get on a on a plane. and horses from here have

gone uh well, we've shipped all continents. i don't know how many countries at this point, but it's numerous, 20 or 30 countries we've been in we handle the transportation, the quarantine and oversee

the vet work, and we ride with the horses on the planes. >>kelly: raising and selling animals of this stature can be a challenge. a "work horse" by definition, the "clyde" also takes a "lot of work" to care for, and you

better have a lot of feed on hand. it's nothing for one horse to eat up to fifteen pounds of grain and one large bale of hay a day! >>phil: well, we start pretty early in the morning and there's always

something to do. they get fed early then if weather permitting like it is right now, they get out on the pasture every day, they get back in and get fed in the evening. there's always foot trimming to do, there's

uh, manes and tails to be care for, uh horse breaking and training, to lead and to drive uh, a lot of people now request us to uh train them to ride. [wind in background] we've supplied horses to dixie stampede, sheppard of the

hills, george foreman, the boxer, actually uh bought horses here and i delivered them to his ranch in east texas and spent a few days showing him and his family how to drive them and harness them and take care of them also.

and the heiress of weyerhaeuser company was a client, and uh just numerous folks like that that we deal with. and uh, we've had farm managers of charlie daniels here, i've not met charlie but his farm

manager's been here um, most recently, ashton kutcher and uh, demi moore are looking at a project. ashton's cousin has been here several times who is handling the project for him. >>kelly: but a horse that requires a lot of

attention also gives a lot of joy to this central illinois family. phil farrell may deal with a lot on his farm, but he says after all chaos he can always turn to his clydesdales. >>phil: you know, in

business when everything is upside down and everybody's mad at everybody, yelling at each other and all the phone calls get ugly and all that when i come to the barn it's quiet they're like they were that

morning, the day before, the night before. they are ready to eat or do whatever. so, it's is calming and relaxing to come to the barn. they are very laid back and and i think probably there would be some people that

might would disagree with me, but aah i think i have a little experience i have had a lot breeds and i would say overall, in each breed, i think the clydesdales are probably the most laid back. there are laid back horses

in other breeds, but in general there are very few clydesdales that are not laid back and easy to handle and all. and they they are like a big puppy dog, i mean that's, they just, they like to be in your pocket.

so, uh, in general, i can say that pretty truthfully. >>kate: that's all the time we have for this week, thanks for joining us. >>lori: don't forget you can always view past and present shows on our you tube channel, that's

youtube.com/weiutv. >>kate: we'll see you next time. >>lori: funding for heartland highways is made possible in part by eiu's academy of