[upbeat wind instruments] [Narrator]: Up ahead is Country Crossroads, where town and country  folks meet each week. Come on along, it's just 30 minutes down the road from Michigan State College. And waiting at the crossroads is your country neighbor, George Axinn. [George Axinn]: Hi neighbor,  glad you stopped by. We've got some visiting to do today. You know, we can go anywhere from Country Crossroads and that's just what we're gonna do in a few minutes. First, let me finish notching  the top of this board. [George Axinn]: Hi, Clint! [George Axinn]: How are you doing?- [Clint Ballard]: Hi George, how you doing?- [George Axinn]: Sit down a minute. [George Axinn]: Gonna try  your luck again today? [Clint Ballard]: Oh, yeah. I thought I'd try it out. It's a nice day, and.. what are you doing anyhow? [George Axinn]: Well, I'm fixing this board  up to mount my prize catch of the season on. [Clint Ballard]: Well, you've got a lot of board there. [George Axinn]: Well- [Clint Ballard]: How big was he? [George Axinn]: Oh, about like so. [Clint Ballard]: What?! [George Axinn]: Yeah- [Clint Ballard]: You mean you caught it around here? [George Axinn]: Sure, over in the river. [Clint Ballard]: No way... [George Axinn]: Yeah, about that- [Clint Ballard]: Actually, George, how- how big was it? [George Axinn]: Well, just about so big. That is, from here to here. [Clint Ballard]: Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, wow. [George Axinn]: (laughing) There he is. [Clint Ballard]: Oh boy, isn't that something? [George Axinn]: Yup. [Clint Ballard]: Yeah- [Clint Ballard]: I've heard of, uh, plank whitefish and plank trout but first time I ever saw a plank minnow. That's really something. Hey, George, look to me as though you  have quite a lot of whittling to do here before you can get that job done. [George Axinn]: Well, there is a lot of notching- [Clint Ballard] I got an idea here, uh [Clint Ballard]: Think maybe this might help you out just a little bit. Take that and see if you can't whittle that down to size. Well, I gotta be going. [George Axinn]: Well, good luck to you, Clint. [Clint Ballard]: Yeah. Bye, George. [George Axinn]: 'Least he didn't get away. [Arlo] Hey, mister, what way to Miss Hershey's house? [George Axinn]: Miss Hershey's house? Well, sonny, it's just up the road past the bend on the other side. Say, nice looking strawberries. [eating strawberry] [Arlo] Are you kidding, mister? [George Axinn]: Should've given him the wrong directions. Mmm. I'll bet Miss Hershey's gonna make some of that famous frozen strawberry jam of hers. Wait a minute, sonny, I'm coming with you! [upbeat wind instruments] [Miss Hershey]: Why hello, Arlo.  Did you bring these to me? [Arlo]: Yeah... [Miss Hershey]: Thank you so much. The nicest ones from  your garden, too. Well, you know I made some frozen strawberry jam  yesterday from some nice berries, too. And I think you should have some. Would you like some bread and jam? [Arlo]: Yeah... [Miss Hershey]: I'm gonna get you some. I keep this in the refrigerator,  because it really is uncooked jam and you don't have to keep it all sealed up and down in your basement. [opening drawers] [Mrs. Hershey]: How would you like a nice big piece of bread and jam? Then you can eat that as you go along home. You know, this strawberry jam, I like best of all. Do you know why? Because it tastes just like fresh strawberries. You hardly know, even next winter,  that it's last year's strawberries Oh, those that your mother sent are gonna make the very best jam of all. Here you are. Goodbye. [Arlo]: Bye [footsteps] Oh, hello George, I knew you'd be along. I suppose you want some jam too. Well, all right, this time, but not every time. We'll put yours on thick, too. This frozen jam has really made quite a hit in this neighborhood. I can see I'm going to have to send it all over everywhere. [spreading jam] It's just the right consistency, too. It spreads just beautifully. Well, here you are. Now remember, just this time, not next time. Now I must get busy and finish the jam I started yesterday It's really easy to make. All you need is just two cups of mashed strawberries. Would you like to help haul some of these, George? I hauled a lot of them yesterday with this little.. dingus, here. It's awfully handy to use. All you have to do is just nip it off, and they have these right down at the Crossroads Hardware. I think they're only about five cents, or maybe two for five. Well, the two cups of mashed strawberries are just put in the bowl, cold, with four cups of sugar. Four whole cups of sugar. And then we stir them and stir them  about every two or three minutes. These have been standing now about twenty minutes, so I'm going to put the pectin in. Oh, George, don't you know what pectin is? Well, that's the substance that's in all kinds of fruits, in some kinds of fruits more than others, that makes the jelly gel. Sometimes you cook it, but in this kind you don't have to cook it at all. So we'll put in a half a cup, that's a half a bottle. Right up to the line, here. I used the other half yesterday. So, to our two cups of mashed  strawberries and our four cups of sugar, we add a half a cup, or a half a bottle, of liquid pectin. If want to use the powdered kind, you take a whole package. One whole package and one cup of water,  and boil it up for one minute, and then add that. But the liquid kind is a little easier to use. I sometimes think the sugar dissolves just a little faster though, if you use the powdered pectin and boil it for a minute, and then put it in. Now this has to be stirred  for about two minutes, so I'm going to set my minute minder. And it will have to be stirred almost constantly, until you feel it getting thick. This is the most fun because you don't mind making it on a hot day, and you see you can just, almost,  read while you're doing it if you really wanted to. If you don't have strawberries,  and you wanna make raspberry jam, you can make that, in  almost the same way. You can make grape jam, or you can make cherry jam. And it's just as easy one way as the other. There now, I can feel this thickening, so I'm going to dip it right into the glasses. And just think, I don't have to cook it at all. [pouring jam] We'll have to wipe that one off a little later. Right up to the edge. Then this will have to stand for about 24 to 48 hours. Usually, it sets in about 24 hours. And when it's nice and set, then we can paraffin it and put it in the freezer. Right now, though, I'm going to  leave it at room temperature and just cover it with a little foil, loosely, until it's perfectly set. and then it will go in the refrigerator, and it can stay for six weeks. And if I want to keep it longer than that, I'll put it in the freezing unit. This is really the easiest kind of jam to make. And doesn't it look good? It will be set in just a little bit. You better come and wash your face,  before your mother sees back. [upbeat wind instruments] [George Axinn]: My, that was good. Yessir, she makes the  best strawberry jam, and the proof is really in the eating for that frozen way of making it. Uh-oh. Clint left his creel. I wonder if he'll need this. You know, I can't understand that fellow. He's always gone fishing. Never seems to catch very much, but he's always gone fishing. I wonder how he's doing today. [soft orchestral music] [Clint Ballard]: This, that's my idea of fishing. I like to go fishing for fun, for fame, or fish. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not particularly rich as long as I go fishing. To me, it's not important to plan, or hope, or wish, or draw a blueprint of the day to make it fun to fish. I just like to go fishing. Sometimes, of course, the weather's rough. To cruise a craft  is kind of tough, especially for fishing. So I find myself some likely lee and let nature stage a show for me. Still glad I went fishing. Then again, the fish won't bite. Perhaps that's 'cause the sun's too bright, considered bad for fishing. To me, hot sun provides excuse to climb out on the shore and lazy beneath a willow tree and watch a seagull soar. To me, that's part of fishing. Who knows?  Maybe a sandpiper would come teetering up the beach. Not in sort of neighborly, almost within my reach. Ain't that a part of fishing? Now, I suppose I was really fishing. Maybe around the bend when that neighbor came a-calling I'd have missed my feathered friend and missed a part of fishing. Then often when the sun goes down and conditions are ideal by rights, I should be fishing, but that ain't the way I feel even if I did go fishing. I can't make myself disturb a frog who struck his basso toe in the evening and now belongs to him. So I strike out for home, still glad I went fishing. When I come sauntering in the house as happy as a wish, someone's sure to holler out, "Father, where's your fish?" I think things are. What's that got to do with fishing? You know, they think I'm lazy as a coo. They don't know how fishing pays. They're in hopes that very soon I'll mend my fishing ways or not go fishing. They'll never understand me, no matter what I say. Because I never let the fishing spoil a first-class  fishing day. That's my idea of fishing. [soft orchestral music] No, I guess he won't miss this. He's not that kind of fisherman. You know, he's never as interested in the fish as he is in the fishing. I see there's  something in here, Fuller's Fish Market?! Three large frozen trout. Well, no wonder he doesn't need this. Here's a note on the back. Extension meeting at  the community hall, make hay the safe way with Professor Donald Brown. Hm? It's today too. I'd like to hear him, he sounds like Herb Shriner to me. Let's go down to the community hall. [upbeat wind instruments] [Professor Donald Brown]: Hi George, come on in and find a seat. Gee, this is quite an honor to have a man of business you are  drop in on an extension meeting. I know you've got a lot of work to do down there. I'll tell you fellas, our time's just about up here, we've been rambling on here all afternoon on this meeting, but suppose we just try to wind the thing up here and summarize it up into a nice little package that you can take home with you and talk things over with your wife, with your neighbors that didn't have to make it today. Now let's remember that when we're talking here a while ago about making hay, that is making hay in a barn or curing it in the barn we should say, that the whole secret of course depends on forcing air through that hay. And we do that with a fan, a hay drying fan that we have set up here on our little model. [fan whirring] Of course now that fan, when we have it installed in the barn, forces the air down this duct that we have here and that is, you might say, the heart of our hay drying system is the distribution system, the air distribution system. Now, this is what we call the A-frame type. Turn our model around here. You notice, that the duct  is actually made in the shape of an A with slats on the side. Now force the air down through the duct here with the fan and it comes out through the cracks here, filters up through the hay. The secret of that is to get our hay on there evenly and not get it packed on in spots, so that we get air through one part and don't get it through the other. You know air is sort of like myself when a lot of the other people around over the country it's kind of lazy and it's going to go wherever it can go the easier just like water it's going to flow where it can go the easier. Now then, we didn't say anything about the motor that we run this fan with. Of course we have to have some way of powering that fan, we couldn't stand there and turn it with a crank and depend on forcing air through the hay, so we hook it up to an electric motor and of course on that motor then we need a control system of some sort. Usually a starting system and a lot of times we like to hook these things up with a time clock so that the motor will turn itself on and turn it off, that way we don't have to get up and run out and then turn the motor on or turn it off when we want to dry the hay. So there's a lot of different ways of getting around that. You call, as I think I've seen a lot of hay dryers already in operation, we've talked about them here today a lot and we've got a bulletin on it you might be interested in it's got a lot of stuff in it. So now then we have our motor, we have our fan, we have our controls. Another thing that we mentioned here a while ago, one of you fellows brought up about wiring your barn to take care of a motor big enough to operate the hay dryer. Of course that's something you got to keep in mind is to make sure that you've got sufficient wiring in your barn, wire large enough to take care of the current that your motor is going to draw on, and that of course might create a major wiring job in your own farm, but that's, you'll have to figure that out yourself. So now then let's see, let's go back over some of the advantages that we talked of here a while ago about a hay drying system. Remember that we said that we get better quality hay if we can dry it in the mow. Now better quality hay, of course these samples here that we pulled out of Jim Smith's barn this morning are getting pretty well beaten up by now. A lot of you fellas been around here trying to see what kind of hay Jim makes, I don't know, but you'll notice this sample here that came off of his dryer still has a lot of the leaves left on it, some of them are gone, the leaves and the small stems or what we like to get into the haymow rather than the coarse stemmy material that we have in this other sample. Now here's the difference in these two samples of hay. This sample with the leaves and the small stems was dried on Jim's hay dryer. This was dried in the field, now then how come? You might ask, why do we have more leaves and more small stems? Well, here's the secret of the whole thing. If we can cut the hay down and let it dry, dry enough to put in on the dryer, it'll still be tough enough that these leaves and the small stems are going to hang on there, they won't shatter and fall off. Whereas if we have to let it dry down to well around 20% moisture, we usually think of being a safe point to put hay in the mow without a dryer, we have to let it dry down to there a lot of these small leaves and stems are going to shatter off, and we lose them. So, we feel that we can get much better quality hay by using the hay dryer. Now the next point that we talked about was that we get more hay. Actually get more hay into the mow from the same acreage that we happen to be working. Now then, if we can assume say that we get this much hay into our mow by using field curing methods. Let's say we're cutting, 40 acres, 50 acres, or whatnot, we can assume that  we get this much hay, then we can normally expect to get another 10 to 15% off of the same acreage by using the mow finishing system or the mow hay dryer now then there again, this other 10 to 15% is made up of those leaves and small stems that we saw here on these samples just a minute ago. Actually, 10 to 15% more hay more, volume of hay you might say, into the mow by getting those leaves and small stems and of course those are the parts of the plant, well I don't need to tell you fellas you fellas been feeding livestock long enough to know that all of your animals like this leafy hay, fine quality hay, rather than these big core stems, so we get  more hay into the mow. Another thing that we were talking about here just a while ago, is that we get better labor distribution. By better labor distribution we mean that, well let's say we cannot guess the old weatherman, if we happen to go out to make hay and we've tried to outguess the weatherman, actually you fellas have been doing it for years I know, you can do a pretty good job, say up to 24 hours in advance, maybe 36 hours, but I know that a lot of you have tried to outguess him longer than that and one of these sudden summer storms have come up when you've gotten a lot of hay wet. So by using the dryer, of course we can cut that hay down, and we can juggle our labor around, we can start making hay earlier of a morning, we can start putting hay in the mows say around 8 or 8:30, rather than wait until 11 or 12 for the dew to all dry off, in fact we like to handle it when it's a little tough putting it in on the dryer, so that we keep those leaves and stems on. We cannot guess the weather man long enough ahead to enable us to cut down that hay and get it in the mow, of course we can go right ahead and plan all of our labor and everything right from the very beginning and not have to send some of the hired men home or find other jobs for them to do. Now then, another thing that we usually think of in connection with a hay dryer, especially if we're making chopped hay, is that we get less dust into the haymow. Now by using the hay dryer, we're able to put that hay in let's say we're able to go out in the field and chop it while it's still tough when those leaves and stems are still tough enough that they won't pulverize on us and we can actually blow that hay into the mow and have it in there in good shape whereas if we have to wait until that hay gets down to, well say down to around 20% we usually think of as a safe moisture content for storage, we start blowing that hay into our wagons and we have to blow it into the mow, and we have a man up there in the mow, it's going to be a rather disagreeable place for him to have to work. Now the other point that we mentioned here, was that we can reduce the fire hazard by using a hay dryer. Now all of you fellows I know know of the danger that you run into when you pile a lot of hay into the mow, maybe you get in a hurry there's a storm coming up, you want to get that hay in you'll take a chance you put it in while it's still a little tough, and you know that it's liable to get hot and burn on you, actually we don't have a place on record where an amount a hay mill has burned up or a barn is burned up, where their hay dryer was in operation. I'll tell you fellas, I know our time is getting short here, you fellas have to get home and do up your work. One thing that you might want to keep in mind, and that is that there are a lot of grass days being held around over the state this year, in fact they're coming up pretty soon so why don't you just watch your mailbox or your notice from your county agent telling you when the date's going to be in your county. [upbeat wind instruments] [George Axinn]: Let's see if I  got one of those notices in my mailbox. That's a lot of mail here, well June Dairy Month. Campaign just about gonna start as June starts. Here's the grass day notices, and goodness! I don't have one, I've got about six or seven of them. That's because Country Crossroads can be anywhere. Let's see about these  grass days, though. The first one I see is in Monroe County. It's June 10th. Here's another in Jackson County, June 12th at Rives Junction. Ottawa County is June 15th, that one's at Eastman. In Gratiot County, there's a grass day on June 17th. That's at the farm of Roscoe Carey. Then on June 19th, there's a grass day in Arenac County, and that's Standish. And here in Alpena County, on June 22nd is a grass day at Heron. And the last one I have notice of is June 24th in Kalkaska County at the Jenkins brothers' farm. [wooden top spinning loudly] What the devil is that? [Arden Peterson]: That's exactly what it is, George. You named it, the devil among the tailors. [George Axinn]: Oh, quite a game looks like. [Arden Peterson]: Well, that's- it's a game, made it myself. [George Axinn]: You did? Well,  suppose you tell us how it works. [Arden Peterson]: Well, first I'd like to tell you just about how I made it. [George Axinn]: Okay, go ahead. [Arden Peterson]: Maybe you'd like to make one yourself. I know you'd be interested in it. We took some scrap pieces of lumber we had around the place and then we fitted them together according to a plan, and we made the  box, with all the partitions that we see here. You notice we have partitions over here, little rooms, and then we have little rooms over here. [George Axinn]: Some of your  tailors are out in the open, and the others are in  this little room, is that it? [Arden Peterson]: That's right.  And incidentally, these are the tailors, and we made them out of ten pins, just common old ten pins. We turned them down a little bit better and then we painted them. We even put a tux on them. And then we have the tailors, we have the devil too. The devil is a top, which spins. We spin the top and this is the way we spin it. Now, maybe I can set this up while you are setting up these devils, uh these tailors, these tailors have a value and there's a number under each one and that is the value of them if they are knocked down. Now, would you like to play a game with me here? [George Axinn]: Go ahead you show me how first, then I'll try a game. [Arden Peterson]: Fine. All right, we just wrap this string that has this little stick on the end of it around this top and we start spinning the devil. And then we, uh, insert this little stick through the hole in the end of the box. And, uh, then we just give it a yank and we see how many of the tailors the devil will knock down. My total score will be the value of the tailors that are knocked down. [Arden Peterson]: Shall we take it? [George Axinn]: Let's go. [Arden Peterson]: Okay. [wooden top banging around] [Arden Peterson]: That was a flubber. That's the way the beginner's start. [George Axinn]: All right. Give it another try. [Arden Peterson]: All right, we'll wind her her up here and we'll give her another try. Sometimes, things will slip. But it, uh, it's quite a game. My family's had lot of fun with it. An awful lot of fun playing together. [wooden top banging around] [Arden Peterson]: There, we got in the little room. [George Axinn]: Ah, you got right in the 25. [Arden Peterson]: We sure did. And there he goes of the room. And now if the table is level he won't come back in here again maybe, but he's back in there. Out he goes. [George Axinn]: My barrell's not very level, suppose you tip it up just a little bit. [Arden Peterson]: Well, [pins falling down] [Arden Peterson]: Anything can happen,   so let's see what my total score is here. The one in this room here was 25, and then we have a 15, and a 10, that's 25 more. That's 50 and 20, is 70. [George Axinn]: Good for you. [Arden Peterson]: Well, now would you like to try it? [George Axinn]: Yes, I would. All right let's give it a try. [Arden Peterson]: All right. [Arden Peterson]: Well, you see, the  construction of this thing is very simple, George. And I thought you'd be interested, and some of the rest of the neighbors along the way. That's why I was bringing it along today. All right, we have it  wound up here, and so we'll just see what kind of a score you can make. Remember I had 70. If you get in these high ones, of course, there's one with a hundred on there, valuable. [top spinning] [Arden Peterson]: There we go. [George Axinn]: Ah, there's five. [Arden Peterson]: All right. There's 15. 35. [top spinning] And, uh, incidentally, I might just mention, George, that this game has has quite a history in back of it. It goes back, it goes to Europe, to Monte Carlo, and some of those places there and you know what they represent. You can see they put pretty high stakes on some of those little rooms where we have the tailors all bottled up there. [George Axinn]: Get it in that room at the other end, we really have some good score. [Arden Peterson]: I'll say. Of course, that's a little more difficult. Well, let's see what kind of a score we've got here. I don't think I did as well as you did. 20, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60. 60. [Arden Peterson]: 60. Well I did 70 on the  first one. Well, let's try it again. [George Axinn]: Okay.  [Arden Peterson]: And you'll notice  you can't jerk the thing. You have to just make a gentle pull. It was really easy to make and it was fun to make, you know anything that you can make with your own hands is really, really means a lot more to you. [George Axinn]: I wonder if I could make one like this. [Arden Peterson]: Well, I'm sure you could. If I can make it, you can make it, I'm sure. Well, let's try again, see what I'll have. There we go, maybe you'll have a little more life this time. [top spinning] Well let's see what will happen Uh oh, I think he's gonna aim down toward one of those little rooms I sure would like to see him go down there. [top spinning] Well you see, he hits the side, bounces back. [Arden Peterson]: Oh yeah, not bad, not bad [George Axinn]: Resourceful! There's 25 and 20, is 45, and 5, 50, 60, oh I've got to do better than that. I think this barrel leans a little bit this way. If we were a little more level perhaps it would be better [top spins and falls] [George Axinn]: You still did pretty well. [Arden Peterson]: Uh oh, I did a 75.  [George Axinn]: Wind her up, I want to try again. [Arden Peterson]: All right, you set those up, and we'll wind the string on the devil once more. Incidentally George we have, I have plans for quite a few games like this, some bigger and some smaller. And if any of my friends, if you know, or you have any friends that would be interested in this sort of thing, why, I think we can provide them. a lot of the folks that [George Axinn]: A lot of the folks that come by Country Crossroads here, would probably like to build a game like this one. Oh, you got a good start  that time, look at him go. [top spinning, pins falling] We can't get him into those little rooms. Oh, he skimmed past that one. [George Axinn]: He might go back that way. Yeah, I've got 45 already. [top spinning] [George Axinn]: About those plans,  Arden, do you have a set of 'em? [Arden Peterson]: Yes, I had a batch  of 'em made up and I'd like to make them available to some of my friends. If any of them are interested. [George Axinn]: Well if you could  leave some with me, why if they- [Arden Peterson]: Say, I just sent one  to ya, so you might have one. I thought you'd be interested enough in it so, you might check in your mailbox and see. [top falling] [George Axinn]: Wow, look at that! [George Axinn]: I'll just take a look in the mailbox, and see what there is. [Arden Peterson]: Okay. Okay, great. [George Axinn]: Sure enough, Back in here's a set of  Arden's games, homemade games. 4-H Club Department of Michigan State College. Folks you can get one just like this too. just write to us here at Country Crossroads. That's Country Crossroads, Michigan State College, Box 231 in East Lansing. And I'll be glad to send you a set of these plans, and also while we're about it, here's a copy of that book that Don Brown mentioned on hay dryers. Barn Hay Dryers in Michigan. You can get a copy of that too by writing to us here at Country Crossroads. And what do you know? Here's the recipe for Miss Hershey's strawberry jam. Well, all of these are available. You can have any one or all of them by writing to me here at Country Crossroads. Glad you stopped by! Next week we'll be visiting some other places. So long, neighbor! [wind and percussion instruments] [Narrator]: By video recording,  you've just gone by Country Crossroads, where town and country folks meet each week. Today's features were Frozen Strawberry Jam with Roberta Hershey and Arlo Peterson, Goin' Fishin' with Clint Ballard, Safe Way to Make Hay with Don Brown, and The Devil and the Tailors with Arden Peterson. Your neighbor at the Crossroads was George Axinn from the Cooperative Extension Service. Stop by again next week at Country Crossroads, just 30 minutes down the road from Michigan State College. [explosive wind instruments]