HAZLEHURST – From birds to 10-pound bass, cattle and occasional visits by foxes and wild turkeys, R.J. Beach and his wife, Priscilla, have become accustomed to the menagerie that fills their farm, where it’s not rare for an emu to wander over and eventually become a family pet.

The farm is where they resort several days out of the week. They spend the rest of the week at their home in Vicksburg, where Beach makes the little, wooden bluebird homes that fill his property, roadsides and fence posts across the state.

Beach makes 100 each year to sell for $5 each. He usually has only five or six left by the end of the year, Priscilla Beach said.

Since retirement as store manager of the Vicksburg A&P, where he worked for 47 years, Beach has filled his time by, first, making wooden cutouts of a bear family to place in his yard on Oak Ridge Road.

Watching the bear family became a treat for thousands of daily passers-by. He dressed the mama bear and her cubs for every season, including football and back-to-school.

His next venture in wood cutting came in 1997 when he began making the bluebird houses. He was asked by a federal game warden to make 500 to be placed all across Mississippi in hopes of causing a resurgence in the state’s bluebird population. Beach built a shop on his property to dedicate to his efforts and went to work, cranking out a box every 5 minutes once the wood was cut. He makes the boxes from soft pine, cedar and poplar.

Now, making birdhouses has become something he does for the community – and to keep himself busy.

&#8220If people are fixin’ to retire and have nothing to do, they should keep on working or find a hobby,” Beach said.

He spends half his time working at his Hazlehurst retreat and the other half enjoying the fruits of his labor by sitting outside, facing his pond and listening to the birds, for which he has provided at least 20 bluebird houses, several gourds with holes big enough for bird-living and even four 12- to 15-room Martin boxes.

&#8220There is nothing like this – to come to the country and hear the birds,” said Priscilla Beach.

The land, where she and her husband spend about four days out of the week sitting and listening to the animals, is where his family has lived since 1935. Beach moved there when he was 5 years old and he always remembers it being a place filled with animals. He even has a picture of himself with his father and a large group of friends preparing for a fox hunt when he was in high school.

Beach remembers how the land always connected him to nature.

&#8220When I was about 12 or 14 years old, I used to lie down and watch the shooting stars,” he said. &#8220People don’t know what they’re missing – to sit out on a porch and hear the hoot owls and the birds.”