Thumb Holes

Approximately half a million (yep 500,000) sandhill cranes stop over for approximately five weeks on the Platte River Basin on their way north from their wintering grounds to their summer breeding grounds. The National Audubon Society's Rowe Sanctuary in central Nebraska offers space in viewing blinds twice a day for five weeks - in 2011 that will be from March 5 through April 10.

And we're going this year. We want to see the cranes, the millions of ducks and geese plus the bald eagles that also winter or stop over in this river basin. My husband and I are meeting my sister and her husband in Kearney, Nebraska. (We're coming from New Jersey and they're coming from the Chicago area.) We've reserved four spots in the blinds for both the dawn and dusk viewings ($25 per person per viewing) in late March.

And now finally to the thumb holes: The website tells visitors what to wear: "the warmest boots you have, very warm mittens, stocking cap, the warmest jacket and clothing you have, including long underwear, and dark clothing to blend in with our surroundings when walking to and from the blinds."

I've been walking our dogs in my warmest coat and mittens and my wrists have been getting cold. The solution is thumb holes! These are holes in the seams of shirt sleeves about an inch above the hem. My thumbs slip into the holes perfectly so when I pull on my coat sleeves my shirt sleeves stay in place and not only that: when I pull on my mittens my sleeves stay inside the gloves. Voila! No cold air on my wrists.

During our shopping trip yesterday I bought three thumb hole shirts. While browsing the gloves, I found "wrist gaiters." These are wonderful too - they are skin-tight fingerless gloves that have a separate thumb hole (kind of like bicycling gloves). They fit under both the sleeves of a sweater or sweatshirt and the gloves and also block out the cold air. I bought a pair of these too.

And finally after more browsing I found handwarmers and footwarmers. These come in pairs; they are adhesive and applied to the top or bottom of one's socks to keep the feet warm up to six hours. I selected several pairs of footwarmers and one set of handwarmers (my hands don't usually get cold).

I think I'm ready to go to Nebraska - whoops - I forgot about the long underwear. I still need to get that - another shopping trip.