Whenever the wind really gets to blowin’ — which isn’t, like, totally unheard-of on this exposed little island — something in our newly landscaped yard makes a loud banging and scraping noise as if the fence were once again falling over. I dash to the window every time and frantically look the place over, but nothing has ever fallen down. (Sometimes enormous parts of the nearby palm tree’s trunk do blow off and land near our car, but that does not account for this particular noise.)
My best* guess currently is that one of the legion of squirrels that daily try to dig up our new plants gets taken by the breeze and dragged across the pavement for several feet with its claws making a horrible sound, leaving it so traumatized that it swims across to the mainland at the first opportunity and makes its home in a less windy part of the Bay Area and tells all its children and grandchildren never to dig up new plants or the wind gods will strike them down.
*Best guess not because it’s the most likely to be accurate, but because it’s the one I most wish were true.