wind gear

I have been spoiled by this winter. Although I've been spending significant time outside for months, it's been unusually mild almost the entire time.

I went to work with my usual couple of layers - undershirt, 2-layer wool shirt, light pants, and wind-stopping outer gear. It seemed reasonable, considering that it was 55 when I left the house this morning. However, the temperature dropped 20 degrees by the time I got to the field location and the wind quickly picked up to a sustained, oh, 40 mph.

I have been wearing a nasty old knit hat that's only marginally warmer than a bandana. An old bandana. But - buried under six cloth grocery bags, a first aid kit, an emergency fleece blanket, a box of nitrile gloves, and two horseshoes (unearthed a long time ago during fieldwork, they were interesting enough to throw into the trunk but not enough to move out of the trunk), was a two-layer fleece balaclava. Imagine something like these but in a more...festive color.

And you know what? Once I was properly balaclava'd and had added a fleece vest and ditched the wind pants for some lined coveralls (if it was going to precipitate anything, it would be snow) I was toasty the entire day. This, dear reader, is exactly why I haven't cleaned out my trunk of all that miscellaneous field gear that's just been mildewing for the last, oh, several years.