I can’t show you what the wind looks like. There are no leaves or long grasses bending in supplication to the wind to help me show you. I cannot take one picture that lets you feel the full force of a roaring westerly wind, a howling she- gale heaving itself across the prairies. It can literally knock you off your feet. Throwing dust in your face, kicking at your shins.And cackling. This wind cackles. 
And sometimes you feel your body becoming a sail and you are the little boat from when you were a kid and you are pushed backwards a little and lifted a little and you laugh like a grunt and the dogs look at you their coats all blown inside out and they wonder as you grab for a post and giggle.
I can tell you about the anxiety of walking to and fro under the big trees with their falling branches, in a 40 and 50 knot wind that howls, harangues, a harridan, rattling her bones in your ears as you hurry through. I can tell you about working in the barn and watching the big doors bow and rattle and shake. The noise like trains on broken tracks running along too fast as the wind plays with every loose board yanking and shoving at them, trying to rip the old barn doors apart piece by piece. Buckets flying down the lane. Sounds swiped. Guttering whining and shrieking out of harmony though precisely in beat with the halyard clang of the chains on the gates. Wind shrieking that if you tidied up this place once in a while there would not be so much stuff flying around. Stupid girl. 
The slam of doors shoved by the wind. Screen doors hurled against the house then sprung back open by Winds meddlesome daughters and slammed shut again and again. Wind smacking her fingers together with glee and clattering along on her broken glass feet. Chairs skidding right off the verandah and I pick them up and put them back because they are in the way and I must get on, only to pick them up again and put them back again. Wind pokes at me screeching insanity, insanity, into my ringing ears.
I can tell you about my hair whipped into a snarling rats nest. And the strange invigoration of pushing into the Westerly all day as I walk the triangle from garden to barn to kitchen begin pushed along by it half the time. I could tell you how all the clothes are hung into the verandah line to dry, if I hung them on the clothesline outside I would be collecting them from the ditch the next day yet on the verandah they are merely a tangled mess. I could even tell you of the frustration of cutting up all the vegetables for Poppy and Sheila the pigs only to see the same vegetables blowing out of their bowls as I carry them through the field – the chooks chasing after me, goosed by the wind, gleefully picking up the flying food, their feathers standing up like surrendering flags.
How to show you the wind. I can’t. But it was wild. I feel bad for the people whose bad winds twisted into tornadoes. At least we did not have that. Tornadoes we do not want. 
That wind blew like that for 24 hours. It rattled my scrambled brains. Then last night at exactly 7pm. It stopped. Just like that. Like a tap turning off or the clap of a respected teachers hands. Stopped. And suddenly everything was quiet again. Wind packed up her tricks and was gone, her daughters with her. And it was quiet again. Quiet.
Lady Aster is being the perfect milk cow so far, she stood in the milking shed like a .. well like a Lady and I milked her without any problem at all. She was scarcely bothered by me taking over her calf. Mooed a little then after the milking went out into the fields to bother the new grass. She needed the walk, it helps her heal. If this continues she will be a lovely milk cow. All I need is volume now.
Her tiny baby – Naomi – is drinking well and slowly gathering her strength. She is in the sunroom with the big South windows and slept her Second Day away between little feeds. Unbothered by the wind. (You know how particular I am about drafts).
Last night got cold again, but today should be a better day. Actually every day is a better day. Just different.
I hope YOU have a lovely day or at least find some loveliness in your day.
Your friend on the farm,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
55 responses to “What does wind look like?”
Wow. The beauty of your writing puts that wind to shame. Faulkner-esque my dear. And that’s high praise from a Southern girl. On another note entirely, maybe Elsie needs to be called Lady Elsie in order for her manners to change. Naomi is a precious little wee thing. I love her.
They are opposite characters that is for sure.. c
Oh, I know the sound of that wind, and the malice of her games. It’s the same wind that twists off the tops of our palm trees off, peels back the tin roofs, washes boats up onto the shore, and drops trees onto cars, tangled up with power lines. It has an unearthly shriek, like all the demons of hell… I’m very, very glad you’re safe, and so are your creatures great and small. Miss Naomi is a precious little black angel with her big dark eyes, and it sounds like her Mama is making up for all the rough stuff with Bruiser.
Lady Astor appreciates the fact that you recognised her nobility – she probably sees you as her personal handmaiden 😉
Where is Boo? Is he not snuggled up with Naomi keeping her warm and safe?
Boo is actually just out of the shot..c
Naomi–I’m in love.
You have shown us the wind with your superb descriptive words.
When we have Spring winds that go on for days, it starts to rattle my brain as well as my windows. It’s unsettling. I wonder where that came from in our evolution as humans—the upsetting nature of winds that stay.
Congratulations on the milking session! I wonder if you could trade Lady A at weaning for a couple little beef cows??
That is an interesting question Carla, but it IS unsettling isn’t it. Those early settlers out here, those women all alone in those shoddy rattly shanty houses, they must surely have been driven clinically mad.. esp at this time of year when most all of the stores are eaten, waiting for the cow to calve, all those pressures.. then day after day of terrible wind.. c
Oh that little delicate flower. Naomi. She is so cuddly looking. I’ll bet you have a hard time keeping from scooping her up in your arms, marching inside to take a seat on your rocker and singing Rockabye Baby. Adorable! Hazel too!
The wind! Night before last, it blew so hard through the letterbox of the front door, keening, mourning and moaning, it kept my husband awake all night. Jamming a towel in its mouth helped a bit last night–too little and too late, however.
You must have a delightful old fashioned house with a letter box in the front door.. our dryer vent flaps like that in a northerly.. deeply annoying. c
As a native of the southwestern Minnesota prairie, I understand the wind of which you write. I understand tornadoes, too, one having hit the farm where I grew up and area communities, killing nine.
I’ve been wondering how close the destructive tornadoes raged near you. Glad you are safe there on the Farmy. But my heart aches for those who have lost loved ones and property.
Celie, your post today is redolent of the best kind of poetry – words, movement, and sound. This would-be poet humbly applauds you.
Lovely Naomi and Elsie, and the cheeky little goat. A treat on all fronts today.
love,
ViV x
Thank you Viv. that cheeky little goat found a hole (since fixed) in the fence and followed me about for quite some time until I was free to take her back.. like a puppy.. c
Her majesty Fanny learned today how to take the hook out of the gate latch, thereby leading the league of lady layers and the ducks on a tour of the back yard. Fortunately the back yard is fenced and more fortunately the bird dog was in the house! Now there is a clasp hooking the gate, one you need to have thumbs to work!
Ah.Apparently she is channeling Daisy – keep her away from light switches!
Beautiful, Celi! You must have expected Mary Poppins to arrive at any moment with such wind!
Good morning, I read slowly, visualizing the she wind andall the antics that she performed on the farm during her stay. Beautiful imagery today. So glad you are okay. We have wind in Texas, but maybe that particular I have only seen during a hurricane, hunkering down in the house and listening while it thrashes about outside. That kind of wind is unnerving to me. Then the eye of the hurricane passes and silence until it starts up again after the eye passes by taking the calm with her. Naomi is quite fetching and very photogenic. I hope she gets her strength soon and starts to gambol about with Boo and Ton at her heels to protect her. Today, we are waiting for a man to come take away the antique pump organ. It needs a new home. Earlier this week, the player piano was claimed by a family with a nine year girl who is learning to love music. It’s good and right. Be safe, C.
Oh YES. the piano for a child.. how perfect.. c
What a dear little calf. Babies are lovely. We had that wind here a few weeks ago. Lots of people lost roofs and many trees were uprooted. It sounded as though a jet was flying backwards and forwards past my window.
Oh, I do hope Lady Astor remains a good milking cow! That would be wonderful. And little Naomi is so beautiful! What a face!
You do so have a lovely turn with your words. I feel elevated just reading your description of the wind, as if you gave me my own wings to catch it in.