Hi Harold. Here's a few of my adverse weather tricks:
For light rain...I cut my focusing cloth from a huge rectangle to a triangle with it's top cut off, like a big letter A. (At the lens board the ends are tied and fit under the focusing rails loose enough to allow for lens board movements and to keep it place in the wind). There are a series of slits cut into the cloth near the ground glass, so that strings tied to the carring handle can be fed through and tied to secure the cloth in place. This is done so that when different lenses are used at different focusing distances, the cloth extends past the lens a bit to keep rain off. This is where some are going to freak out and say, "but the weight of the cloth will effect the image!". When exposing, I wad the ground glass ends of the cloth into my tripod legs to take most of the weight, stop the lens down one extra stop and go for it...this may "be wrong", but at least I'm out there getting some wild images. (It can rain & drizzle here for a month at a time!) For really heavy rain, I put a small rain poncho over the whole works. A big rain poncho goes on the ground for under my pack that then gets draped over the pack and camera bag. I forgot the small poncho once and had to wring out my focusing cloth between photographs!
For bugs in the camera...get the lens on fast! It helps to endure them as long as possible under the focusing cloth then run, screaming, about 50 feet away. When most of the bugs find you again, you sprint back under the focusing cloth...repeat as needed.
Frost on the ground glass...inhale deeply, hold as long as possible while focusing/tilting/shifting/swinging/composing, exhale down and out below armpit. I don't know of any other way.
Heavy wind...I wander in the forest or set up in the protected corner of a pocket beach - 20 feet can mean the difference between no breaze at all, or bellows sheading winds.
For deep snow...I cut tennis balls in half, cut slits in the top of the dome, and force them onto my tripod legs cupped side down. I may try big ski pole baskets this year.
My tripod used to have a fancy "good for life" wood/glue laminated top plate. It didn't like the rain forest, or being lashed to the deck of a sea kayak...now have an aluminum one. The tripod used to have plastic nobs for tightening the legs...now has big bad-ass galvanized wing nuts...they can withstand the bashing with rocks one has to do when you forget to loosen them off and wander around in the rain all day, after a dry spell and the wooden legs have swollen up.
Large format Killer Whales...can't wait to see yours!
Murray