The Wind

The wind was so strong yesterday that it blew our trash can over and spread bits of kitchen garbage all the way to the back corner of our property.  As soon as I got home I realized that the dogs and I would get to spend the remaining daylight on a garbage picking adventure.  We tracked down fluttering plastic bags in the shrubbery, and rolling raisin boxes in the woodpile.  It's interesting to see the evidence of the weeks meals outside of it's normal habitat.  I was able to reflect on our eating habits in new ways as I reached deep into the weedy margins of the farm to collect blueberry packages and sausage wrappers.    

The wind was so strong it pulled against my clothes and hat and spit tiny stinging drops against my face and glasses.  The tarp on the side of the donkey shed would billow in the wind like a great crackling sail, and then snap like a whip against the barn before popping back out to sail again.  

The wind pulled the screws from a piece of the tin roof on the chicken coop, and it provided an incessant banging as a counterpoint to the crackling flap and pop of the tarp.  The side of the greenhouse was flapping and banging too, and the vent fan in the barn would spin like a turbine and then suddenly stop.  It was eerie, like the scene in a movie right before the tornado.  

The animals were restless.  This chickens stumbled in the wind and their tails blew inside out.  The donkey was frighted of the loud tarp, and Peaches was nervous to trap herself on the milk stand so near the loud noise from the loose piece of roofing, so she stomped her feet on the wood of the stand while she hurried to scarf her food.  When I scratched hay from the giant bale to fill the mangers, dust and leaf particles swarmed from each forkful like angry insects and landed in my eyes and pelted the goats.  

I tied the tarp down as best I could, and scrounged up some bungee cords to secure the greenhouse flap.  For the first time, I regretted that the pile of old tires we've collected as we cleaned up around the farm was so far away from the house.  When I racked my brain for a temporary solution to the banging roof tin, it occurred to me that an old tire would solve my problem beautifully - heavy but not sharp - so I could pitch it up there and stop that horrible noise.  An old rubber tire on the tin roof may not be the most elegant solution, but when I look at my barn and chicken coop, elegance isn't what comes to mind anyway!  Unfortunately Thankfully the tires weren't convenient, so Brandon got to do some carpentry by flashlight when he got home.  

Once the trash was captured, animals fed, and the loose bits were tied down, I retreated to the house and turned up the music so I could mask the windy noises from outside.  Cats, be glad you get to sleep in here!