Uncle Roger's Birdhouses

Roger Hills lives on the summit of a dizzying hilltop road called Jewett Hill in Apalachin, New York. He built his own home only a few miles from the potato farm that his great-grandfather, grandfather and father tended before losing the farm to root-cellar potato prices in the 1920's. Since Roger couldn't work the farm, he instead found his life work in brick, mortar and stone, building several homes in the area, as well as constructing grand fireplaces and walkways for the wealthier folk in this rural community that hugs the border of Pennsylvania.

In his "spare" time, Roger takes walks through his wooded land, looking for branches, stumps or planks that intrigue him. What catches his eye is either the shape, the shading, or the way insects, birds, or beaver have made their mark on the wood. Sometimes he finds old barnwood, with the red stain just a faint memory on the board. Of course he gets permission from the landowner before hauls off that kind of treasure. He seeks and finds the unusual angle or curve, carefully collecting any strange beauty that nature carves herself.

This search for the unusual has assumed a seasonal pace. Uncle Roger walks and collects his wood during the spring, summer and fall. In the winter, he hunkers down into his woodshop where he takes any piece of wood from his collection that inspires him that day, and begins building a unique birdhouse. As the temperatures drop and the snow flies, Uncle Roger builds one birdhouse a day on average. Perhaps building birdhouses that follow the course of his imagination is his way of expressing his faith in the advent of the next spring; it's Uncle Roger's own way of conjuring up visions of the dawn of the day the migrating birds return to nest on Jewett Hill Road.