One of the lasting impacts life in Korea will have on me is farming & the dream of one day having my own little farm – one where we don’t move every time we turn around would be preferable.

I’ve been in Korea over 800 days now – watching my 3rd & final growing season in Anjung-ri.

And I’ve learned a lot from watching the local farmers.

So this year, I ordered seeds from Burpee online & tried my hand at planting my own little backyard crop.

I ordered dwarf velour green beans…that are actually purple.

And now I’ve got my first “mess of beans” as my Granny would say.

I’m going to cook these babies up & serve them with a grilled balsamic pork loin and  potato pierogies…num, num...and serve it all with some sparking white grape juice (sorry, we’re not drinkers).

But soon I’ll also have tomatoes ready for salsa. I’m afraid I got them in the ground later than I should. But look at those big ol’ babies!

And so far one little lone jalapeno, but more are starting & hopefully the serrano peppers will catch up, too.

If I cross my fingers, I might just get lucky enough to have my own little sugar baby seedless watermelon….way late in the season.

But I’m super pumped about my little ear of corn – so far it looks like I’ll have a whoppin’ two of them, but fresh corn I don’t have to pay $6.39 US for?….

Definitely worth it – and I’m counting the days until I can roast those suckers on the grill.

Hmm…smoky, chewy corn – with lots of butter.

Behold the Korean electric bill!

Last June we burned over 800 kilowatts…or roughly $350 US dollars.

(And that was the smallest of our summer bills.)

At the height, we paid just under $700 – and don’t be confused, thinking we were living at a constant 68 degrees. Oh we were constant alright, constantly miserable.

Our bedroom at night would cool down to a chilly 83 degrees – just cool enough to toss & turn on night on top of the covers. And that was with running the room’s a/c unit non-stop.

With the move coming up in December, we’ve been trying to squirrel away money left & right – moving is costly enough, but having to move halfway around the world again…massively expensive…and the Army only covers so much.

So this year we went to extremes.

We moved our bedroom into the smaller upstairs bedroom and we converted the downstairs bedroom into our living room. Each has it’s own a/c unit – there’s no such thing as central heat & air in Korea.

I bought tension rods to hang in the door frames & put up black-out curtains to keep the cold air in, but still allow the dog & cat to come & go without us having to constantly get up to let them in or out.

So essentially we’ve been living in 200 square feet.

I don’t cook in the kitchen at all – unless it’s the microwave or the crock pot. Most dinners are made on the grill outside.

Yes, we look like hillbillies. Yes, we’ve been mocked by neighbors thinking we’re crazy. But at this point, I just don’t care – laugh all you want.

Our bill this month was only 104,000 won! That’s only $98 US!

How we didn’t think of this last year I have no clue.

Instead we spent last winter continually fussin’ & cussin’ over getting the fire to start & actually stay lit.

But I was crowned Fire Queen, so that was a plus. And I’m not giving up my title, by the way.

You see, it’s easier to burn a fire everyday starting around 3pm in order to have it put out enough heat to keep us warm come nightfall. It’s also cheaper than burning Korean oil and I’m all about the money.

But it’s also a huge pain as time goes by. Every day, start a fire.

And considering winter lasts  around 6 months, it’s not very economical to burn a $4 firelog everyday just to get it going.

So instead we used them for the days when we were both too tired, too frustrated to mess with starting a fire the old-fashioned way.

So this year I decided there had to be an easier way.

Could we order fatwood online? Could we make our own firestarters from pine cones & wax?

And then it dawned on me…they sell those freakin’ little duraflame firestarters back home!

(Do they sell them here?….Ahhh, no.)

Hence the idea to just split those big suckers into chunks & wrap them in our left-over packing paper.

So now we’ll spend $1 a day not have to mess with the tedious task of “building a fire”.

Yep. Now we’re thinkin’.

While things may have looked bright & sunshiney this morning, do not be fooled!

It is not expected to stay that way for long.

Typhoon Kompasu is heading our way.

[cue the scary music]

As in it should be here tomorrow morning.

So after much internal debate, knashing of teeth & rending of clothes, I decided to take the screen house down.

By myself.

So out came the furntire, off came the light strands.

Down came the wind shield & bug screen.

I labored & sweat & toiled & huffed & puffed until I could huff & puff no more…

Ok, so it took all of 20 minutes to take the sucker apart – but it was hot outside!

Everything’s now safely tucked inside our shed & we get a lovely view of our pumpkin…and the empty patch.

I use the word ”our” strictly in the vernacular sense as we did not plant said pumpkin but rather laid claim to it as it has grown on our side of the fence.

And what a lovely pumpkin it shall be.

Yep…out of heating oil…as of today.

Which means no hot water until the one & only oil contractor (a one-man gig with one truck) who covers both Humphreys & Osan can finally get around to filling us up.

[ugh]

Normally that process takes a week.

[double ugh]

I tried heading to the realty office today to get them to schedule a delivery for us (since we’re not given the number) & they had closed the office early.

[fudge]

So tack another day onto that process.

[double fudge!]