That's how I feel about high winds around here, like it's a good test of how I have my shelters set up. Can they withstand the weather, keep my livestock safe and protected? Where are the gaps or shortcomings? And, the side benefits, like knocked down evergreen branches that my goats LOVE to munch on lol
The high winds today brought down a concerningly large evergreen branch just 5 feet from the back of my Expedition, and several smaller branches, which I gathered up and tossed over the fence - the goats hustled over and happily started munching on those :)
I was disappointed to watch the "wall" tarps flapping wildly in the wind, offering absolutely no protection to my rabbits; they had pulled free of their tie downs. Now, I realize that these are meant to be light-weather shelters only, but since these are all that fit in my budget right now, I have to get creative with them to get them to perform better than what they were originally designed for. With the goat pen, this meant securing the legs on the outside of the cattle panels, to give the legs far more stability than if I'd stood them up on their own. The bungees that we originally got with the shelters to secure the fitted roof tarp all stretched over time; my solution was to cut sections of twine from the hay bales I've used, and trade the bungees for the stronger twine ties, which minimized and in some places eliminated the troublesome sagging areas of tarp. Back to the high winds, I looked around our farm yard, needing large sections of SOMETHING to pin down the tarp walls, so that the rabbits would have protection from the wind. For the east side of the rabbitry, I found our old metal slide base from the kids large log play set; I dragged it over to the rabbitry, set it on its long edge, leaned against the tarp, and then propped a couple old heavy wooden sawhorses and a pallet against the slide and the remaining lenth of tarp to keep it pinned in place. One side done, now for the west side...this was a bit more tricky, as I was running out of large type surplus materials, but I did find a narrower section of what could be sub flooring, about 7' long, that I propped against the tarp, then a section of cement board, and filled the remaining gap with a broken-bottomed storage bin (top flap lid open, set on it's short side) that I wedged in place with packed snow. Yeah, I'm lauging too - it's completely ridiculous, but hey, it worked! ;) The west side had lighter material holding the bottom edge of tarp in place, so I gave it a little more oomph by tying the bottom corners of the tarp to the middle outer edges of the end cages - this way, when the wind knocked the sub flooring section over, it still keeps the wind from sweeping directly through the rabbit cages.