Back Home on the Hobby Farm

Retirees are working hard--and loving it--as they abandon the city to till the soil

Callie Shell / Aurora for TIME

The Millers happily produce berries, chickens, and eggs on a retirement farm they consider a sort of 401(k).

Correction Appended: October 29. 2007

When he was a child, Walker Miller would pick berries and bring them to his mother, who baked "the best blueberry pie you ever ate," he recalls. Today, Miller, 66, a retired Clemson University plant pathologist, has found a way to return to a bit of that past: he owns a 9-acre (3.6 hectares) pick-your-own farm in rural South Carolina, which he named the Happy Berry. At least some of the local children who pick blueberries for their mothers today pick them from Miller's fields. This pleases him--as does the simple hard work the place...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!