I am a retired third-generation Kona coffee and macadamia nut farmer living with my husband of 55 years, Norio, in a comfortable home in Pearl City. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to spend some time on the family farm where I grew up. My brother, 12 years younger, runs the farm and always welcomes free farm help.

In 2017, when I was one-third owner of this 10-acre property, Nori and I had thought we’d like to live on the farm till we passed into heaven. So, we had built a tiny home. A year later, our aged bodies said no more; so I sold my interest to my siblings and Nori and I moved back to our home in Pearl City. I might explain that, in 1961, when I graduated high school in Kona, my wish was to get away from coffee picking. (Many of us who grew up on farms did so ASAP.)

I subsequently attended business school in the big city of Honolulu and started working for the state of Hawaii civil service system. After falling madly in love with Nori, we married and raised two boys in Pearl City. In 1993, my father suddenly passed in a fishing accident in Kona.

Hence, since Nori had retired from Pearl Harbor and my little business wasn’t doing very good, we returned to Kona to help my mom run the farm.

Fast forward to July 27, 2022.

I was sitting on the deck of this tiny home that was my dream back in 2017. The deck was an extension of a 9- by 20-foot doll house. It has a panoramic Kona coastline view. This view was now totally taken up by a gigantic banana bush. I had not visited the property for nearly three years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A friend had given us a couple of plants five years ago, saying, “They’re dwarf.” Dwarf, my foot! I looked at this monster and decided I was going to do something about it.

So, within minutes, sickle and saw in hand, I started chopping away at the bush, working from the outside.

I wanted to keep a few trees. One had a bunch of young fruit. That will stay. I will leave perhaps five trees in different stages of growth. Stumps and leaves began piling up all around the bush. I looked at them with proud satisfaction. They will eventually rot and become compost. No problem.

I look up. Oh, look at those dead leaves. I need to cut them off. I climb on a stump that I had cut earlier. I reach up and grab a dead leaf with my left hand, sickle in my right.

Before I realize what’s happening, I’m headfirst in the middle of the bush, lower stomach on a stump I had cut earlier. It’s freshly cut so it’s slippery. The sickle is no longer in my hand. My feet are dangling in the back. There’s nothing to pull myself up. I’m thinking, what’s in here? Geckos? Spiders? Coqui frogs? Rats? OMG! How am I gonna get out? Lord, help! Oh, my, now aches and pains. I’m 78, Lord!

Stupid me! I remember what I was standing on — a freshly cut stump; it was slippery; it was on a slant. Of course I’m gonna slide.

With visions of geckos and rats, I somehow manage to pull myself up. I’m all wet; my shirt is wet up to my neck. Oh, from the wet stump, of course, and more than likely water that was stagnant in the dead leaves.

Kona has been raining recently. Summer is wet weather here — but it is soooo nice!

Linda Maruyama Kunimitsu, a third-generation retired Kona coffee farmer, resides in Pearl City with Norio, her husband of 55 years.