On the wings of the wind

I have mentioned Cowfeathers is windy. Maybe I should say, Windy. We get awfully accustomed to it, but it still is a source of amazement at certain times. I wickedly enjoyed watching Travis, the youngest on the framing crew for our addition try and walk across the lawn with a piece of plywood. The other framers were not going to make themselves out as fools, so required Travis to move all the plywood. He looked just like one of the roosters on a windy day. They aim at where they want to go, start off, and find themselves blown well off course.
The wind should be harnessed here, but as our windmill is not currently functional, the wind is mostly just a maintenance problem. It blows stuff, around, off, away. We lost half of the gutter on the back of the house, just twisted off and blew into the field. Great blasts take off the occasional slate tile from the barn- the slate on the house seems more stable. The barn slate will burst off the west side of the roof, tomahawk over the peak and bury itself 3-5" into the ground on the east side of the barn. Not a good place to stand on a windy day. I have mentioned the outhouse doing a yearly "Dorothy" until I bolted it to posts sunk in 2' of concrete. No promises that that will do the trick.
A few weeks ago, the farrier was here to replace one of Oslo's shoes, and the wind started up, fierce. I brought all the animals into the barn and waited. At one point, the farrier thought he might go out to his truck, only we couldn't push open the door. Maybe you should wait. When the fury calmed, and the rain subsided to rain, not tsunami, we parted ways with the barn. I surveyed the damage, and the rest of the gutter had gotten flighty. Sigh. Slate roofs and gutters are a financial drain ( punny!). So, I have hosted several insurance folks and estimators of the inevitable. We will have to put on new gutters. This means taking off a row of slates, applying the appropriate half-rounds and replacing the slate. Yes, Ick! Perhaps, "Merry Christmas"!