Pomnyun Sunim’s Day Of Farming And Picking Persimmons

Pomnyun Sunim spends his day farming and picking persimmons.

Pomnyun Sunim spent all his day farming. The very first thing that he did under the warm sunlight was dusting off wild sesame seeds. He took the dried sesame stalks and shook them, even the dry leaves fell together.

Then he took the seeds and set them in front of a fan to blow away the small sesame seed skins. He also collected sesame stalks to be used as fire kindlings. There’s not a single thing to waste.

Pomnyun Sunim was out on the farm from early morning despite of a cold he had caught a few days before. He prepared chrysanthemum and other flowers so they wouldn’t freeze over the winter.

He also harvested radishes that grew in the front yard.

It looks as though Pomnyun Sunim enters into a spiritual trance when he works so focused on the farm.

After a plot was harvested, Pomnyun Sunim sprayed lime powder, dried cow’s dung, and sesame dregs and overturned the soil. Little worms crawled up to the surface.

On another plot, Pomnyun Sunim sprayed lettuce and coriander seeds.

He then planted wires around the plot and covered the area with a vinyl sheet so that seedlings could grow over the winter.

Afterwards, Pomnyun Sunim started making something called “gam ggal gae” with a long piece of a bamboo stick. He split one end of it and sharpened it. Then, he tightened the area where it began splitting so that it wouldn’t spread even more.

Using the gam ggal gae, a stick used to pick persimmons, Pomnyun Sunim was able to pick persimmons hung up as high as 5~6m.

Pomnyun Sunim even climbed a persimmon tree with a bucket and was able to pick many persimmons.

By lunchtime, Pomnyun Sunim was able to harvest a lot of persimmons. Pomnyun Sunim and his helpers sorted out the persimmons by their ripeness.

After lunchtime, they went to harvest more radishes. Pomnyun Sunim used a shovel to dig up the radishes and his helpers collected them. They gave the radishes to the cows in the neighborhood, who graciously ate them up.

Pomnyun Sunim ended the day by picking more persimmons from a tree near the farm, but he made sure to leave some for the birds to eat.