wyatt & carolyn kuether

 To my surprise, when we got to Wisconsin for our short visit, one of our first stops was to visit the amazing Kelly Ryder Stoll. The first thing she did when we got there was hand me a tiny little box saying, “this is for your post the other day”. I opened the box and inside was my pony. I could have cried there in the parking lot. Just when you’re exhausted, tired, crabby and ready to think all the work has to be done by you… someone shows up to prove that we can band together to make this place better. Not only did I get my pony… I also got my pig.

Wyatt Kuether​ update. Tomorrow morning is another doctors appointment. They won’t be able to tell us if the MRSA is gone yet, that’s a minimum of 10 days, but they will definitely be able to tell us if the medication is “not” working. The pain has gone down so we’re hoping that has to be a good sign. Also what looked like a fungal infection around the ankle and toe which they previously said was a form of athlete’s food has now almost completely gone away which doesn’t really make sense unless they misdiagnosed that before. Everything is looking the best it has so we have fingers crossed for good news tomorrow.

I would really like to find our pony, because man, we’ve been shoveling for a very long time. We found out today that Wyatt has MRSA in his toe (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to antibiotics). This is all still stemming from the initial break of the ankle. We’re coming up on 11 months of discomfort, pain, bills and fear of results and outcome. Mentally we’re still doing ok. And still super excited about all the work of growing The Production Farm… but man, we’d love to find that pony.

If you don’t know the reference, there are a couple different versions to this story, but this is how I remember it growing up.

A little boy got in trouble for not going to bed on time. The next morning his father walked him to the barn, handed him a shovel and pointed him to a horse stall that was completely filled with manure. He said the boy needed to stay in the barn until it was all cleaned up. An hour later the father went to go check on the boy. He was shoveling so hard and so fast with a huge smile on his face. His father said, “What are you smiling about!” the boy looked up beaming and said, “With all this crap there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!”

Party planning for Monday couldn’t be going any smoother. We were all set to do all our driving around today to pick everything up… Last night my crown fell out and I booked an emergency dentist appointment for 11:30am. We got the car back from the shop yesterday (new rack and pinion needed) drove around the block and got a flat tire. Changed the tire but I missed my appointment. Rescheduled for 12:30. So far the days going great. Luckily Wyatt and I are still in the laughing stage. Might be crazy people laughter, but still laughter…. Ha! Our printer just ran out of ink which we needed to print off one donation letter for a pick up today. We must have some amazing karma coming up! #GrowTheFarm

Pretty exciting. I put out The Production Farm’s first quarterly newsletter this morning! Here’s what’s happening with The Farm! http://burl.co/50B5007

Now to submit our first year of taxes… #GrowTheFarm

http://www.theproductionfarm.org

We spent the entire weekend re-arranging our entire house. We have a new roommate moving in tomorrow and needed to consolidate our bedroom and office together… you know all those Feng Shui rules about keeping work and stress out of the bedroom… NOPE, BRING IT ON! We’ve basically turned our bedroom into just an office that happens to have a futon in it we can sleep on. We’ll see how long before we go crazy. Actually though, it was really great to clear everything out because with the POWER OF POSITIVE ACTIONS we’re setting our move to Wisconsin into motion. We packed up anything that we knew we wouldn’t need over the next couple months and put them in boxes. Man do we have a lot of crap. It was so nice to have Wyatt able to help move stuff!!!

The downside is I don’t know if it was the moving around and kicking up dust and dirt, or if it’s that it can’t decide if it’s Winter, Spring or Spwinter outside but I either had an allergy attack or got some kind of sinus infection going on. Woke up today and couldn’t turn my head it was pounding so hard. I felt like someone stuck their fingers in my eyeballs and were squishing my brain. Wyatt got to take care of me today, and he was wonderful, although at one point I called him an Italian mother because every time he came to check on me he made me eat something.

Backyard: We busted out the smoker and had our first backyard BBQ over the weekend. It’s still technically too cold to be doing this, but we braved the cold and the reward was amazing food and friends.

Benefits: On The Production Farm side of things we’re in week two of our crowdfunding. So far everyone has been incredibly supportive and helpful. We have two fundraisers planned for the end of April and possibly a third. I’m pumped because my sister is going to fly up from Florida to help with them! Right now we’re trying to gather sponsors for food/drinks and things to put in the swag bags.

Boots: On the Wyatt’s ankle side of things he’s doing pretty great. He still busts out the boot about every third day after lots of activity, but for the most part he’s been able to wear two matching shoes!

We had an amazing first day. It was so fun to tell everyone about what we’ve been working on. We have appreciated the support and wonderful words of encouragement throughout the day. Let’s keep it up the next couple weeks!!!

Wyatt and I have always had a dream to start an organization. Every time we talked about it though it was always, “In the future”, or “When we retire”. Going through everything we’ve gone through with his ankle, the hospitals, the infections, the risk of losing his leg… really makes you re-evaluate what’s important. In the words of a brilliant new musical, FOUND, We want to make sure we’re doing something that we love with people that we love. We have officially become a non-profit called The Production Farm (www.theproductionfarm.org). It is a program designed to teach independent filmmaking to youth in the foster care system. We want to give them a creative outlet to learn that their stories are important. It will be set on a farm environment to also incorporate the hard work, sustainable living and community involvement that will help shape them into healthy, innovative, responsible adults.

Today we go live on the website, social media and crowdfunding campaign. It’s both a little scary and extremely exciting finally announcing this next adventure in our lives.

As of Tuesday Wyatt is free from strings, tubes, tape and gauze. His picc line was removed and he is wearing two shoes again! Wednesday morning was the first “normal” shower he has had in 8 months where he could stand up and not have to wrap anything in plastic or tape or hold an arm up over his head. I think he stayed in there for at least an hour. Don’t take it for granted next time you’re in there!