Retirement? or Retoolment?

We both spent most of our careers in the field of education—Michael as a professor of political economy and me as a business communications trainer for corporations. I would often begin a course by asking participants what they wanted to do when they retired. Many would answer, ‘travel around the world’. (Keep in mind that my trainees were living in Hong Kong, a place where most people traveled out of town when they took a vacation. I think that Michael and I actually knew more about the various neighborhoods and sites in Hong Kong than the actual citizens there did.)

During the 27 years we lived in Hong Kong, we spent most of our vacations traveling back to the US to visit family and friends, often stopping on the way there or back to visit other parts of the world. I also had to travel for my business, to both mainland China and to Taiwan.

Enough of the travel, already! Been there, done that, don’t want any more T-shirts (or coffee mugs).

Neither traveling nor playing golf was our idea of an enjoyable retirement, so we decided instead to retool and start the farm we had wanted to do before our careers intervened.

About ten years before we retired, we began the planning. We discussed the pros and cons, especially for people of a certain age. We agreed that after a couple of years of farm life, we might look at each other and say, ‘What the hell were we thinking?’

But now, after five years full of hard work, dumb mistakes, delicious homegrown fruit and vegetables and happy moments (Michael with his tractor and me with my chickens), we’re not even close to the ‘what were we thinking’ stage. Indeed, as former educators, we’re enjoying the value of lifelong learning more every day.