The roots of this farm run from father to son.

The revitalization of Happy Acres Farm is a testament to those roots and the promise of a son to a father, who was ravaged by Alzheimer's, to keep it going.

Located off Highway 48 just past Five Points, the farm is made up of fruit trees and fruit bushes. Chickens freely roam the land, some mingling with goats. A horse and donkey watch guests from their stable and a dog named Mocha takes swims in the pond and uses drink cans like chew toys.

The farm is the legacy of James Matthews Jr., who died in February, and his son, James Matthews III, has helped restore it to its glory days, when people from across the area would flock there to behold the peach blossoms and pick thornless blackberries and blueberries the size of dimes.

The elder Matthews bought the 53 acres of land in 1979 as a retreat. He moved to the farm a year later. “Dad did it as his exit from the realities of Vietnam,” his son, a detective with the Halifax County Sheriff's Office, said Friday.

By the early 1990s, there were 1,500 peach trees in three different orchards. “He was living his dream of when he was a little boy living on a farm.”

Blueberries are nearly ripe.

It was a thriving farm until his father's health began to decline and weeds and trees began to overtake the assortment of berry bushes and trees, even blocking the pond from view.

James III, working for Homeland Security in Baltimore, came back in 2002 and took over his father's rental property. “Leaks were not getting fixed. I spent a lot of time on the road from Baltimore to here. You do what you have to do for family.”

James III put himself through basic law enforcement training at 49 and began working as a deputy in 2004. The following year he moved to the farm. “I started taking the trees down. Dad was to the point of Alzheimer's he couldn't accept change.”

To save the farm, however, changes had to be made.

George Evans, a lieutenant with the sheriff's office, helped James III with his project as his father watched. “It's pitiful what a person goes through with Alzheimer's,” the younger Matthews said. “I made the decision to just go full forward. If he didn't like what we were doing it was too bad.”

Thirty-eight full grown trees had grown inside the blueberries. Weeds shot up, along with poison oak and poison ivy.

Clearing was a six month job and some of the dead stumps are still visible as the bushes flourish, bearing blueberries that are nearing the point of sweet ripeness.

The work was done on his days off. “I utilize my time off to get things done,” James III said. “I get help from a young man in Roanoke Rapids. We have people come out and help us do stuff.”

Matthews shows Zoe the conveyor system.

The farm is just as priceless to the younger Matthews as it was his to his father and it has become his refuge from the horrors he sometimes sees as a law enforcement officer. “It's my second life … We deal with the bad part of life. We deal with a lot of bad things. When I get to the farm, it's my calm.”

He watches his daughter, Zoe, feed the fish at the pond, and watches her swing on a swing there. It is a place where deputies come to bring their children and have cookouts. “It's a relaxing environment, the kids pick blueberries.”

The work James III has done on the farm was not a self indulgent task. It was a way to honor the groundwork of his father. “This is about my dad. This is my father's achievement.”

To honor that while his father was alive, James Jr. was always given the first fruit. “We wanted him to remember the beauty of his work,” his son said. “He earned that right to have the first pick.”

The business is experiencing a rebirth and James III markets the fruit and the preserves and jams from them around the area but there are so many blueberries now that another marketing angle had to be figured out.

That's when he went online to solicit his fruit and struck a deal with a fruit broker willing to buy the product.

To meet the buyer's demands, James III had to come up with a packing plan and learned a major packing house had old equipment stockpiled.

Matthews checks the irrigation system.

James III refurbished the equipment to where it looks like new, using a conveyor system which automatically puts the berries into 1 pint plastic containers called clamshells.

Even as Happy Acres has become mechanized and is getting ready to enter new territory, there are reminders of James Jr. throughout the farm, through the materials used and through a promise a son made to his dying father. “I told him I would keep his dream going and make sure the farm survived.”

Asked if his father would be proud of the changes made at the farm, James III replied, “I think so. I think my dad would look at this and say, 'Job well done.'”