Sky Chair, and a New Way to Sprout Seeds

Our first or second Christmas in Tucson, a couple from church who had quickly become our good friends, Debby & Roger, gave us the bestest Christmas present ever—a sky chair! They had one and I'd fallen in love with it, so they got us one of our own. Yay! And then Roger hung it from our back patio ceiling beam for us, taking care to get it to swing gently into the perfect position for a view of the mountains.

When we left Tucson 2 years ago, I made sure to pack the sky chair and it made it to Pittsfield with all its poles and ropes intact. Last summer I never quite got around to hanging it, although I knew just where I wanted it to go—under the little pergola in the southeast corner of the back yard. So this year I was determined to put it up before too much good weather had come and gone! This past weekend our daughter and son-in-law, Jesse & Mike, came up from Brooklyn and I enlisted Mike (pictured taking a well-earned rest in the sky chair after 2 days of graciously donated heavy labor in our yard and garden) to help me install the eye screw (which cost me a big 97¢ at Home Depot) and hang the chair.

There may originally have been a headrest attached to the chair—I don't recall—but if there was it disappeared along the way somewhere sometime. So I whipped together a little pillow with fabric I inherited from my mom's stash and a pillow form I got for $1.50 at Jo-Ann's one day when my boss there was trying to get rid of them. A total of about $2.50 and 10 minutes of combined effort from Mike & I and—voilá! Sky chair!!! My new old favorite place to sit…

I also inadvertently discovered a new way to sprout seeds, one that I wouldn't recommend to other gardeners. During the time my mother was dying and I was driving back and forth to western NY, I hurriedly between trips planted all the vegetable seeds in peat pots that I wanted to start early. I then stuck the packets of herb seeds that I'd be planting later down in an "empty" planter so they wouldn't get lost in the month before it was their time to go in the ground. Well, the "empty" planter was actually full of potting soil, and in my distracted rush I didn't think about what the combination of seeds and soil might cause over the course of 3 weeks. Yesterday when I grabbed the seed packets and pulled them out of the pot, I discovered the results of my unplanned botany experiment (see photo)! I went ahead and planted the sprouted seeds, but I don't know if they'll make it. They may have used up all their sprouting energy already. So before you try this at home, wait to find out if the transplantation was successful.