During Cheese Week we got our tabletop garden ready to use along with the readings from Tending the Garden of Our Hearts. [See my review and links here.] It’s very simple, actually. I used a plastic tray and covered it with packaged sheet moss. We planted a few tiny pots with grass seed and also a few “chicks” from some succulents (so there would be something we could water and watch grow). We gathered rocks from the front drive and washed them.

Beginning on Forgiveness Sunday we started putting out one rock per day to make a path to the center white candle (to be lit on Pascha). Today being the Sunday of Orthodoxy I helped the girls pick out tiny paper icons to cut out of a catalog. I twisted some floral wire into two little stands and we taped the icons to them. They put these in the garden next to today’s rock. (Note: I am using a larger rock for each Sunday to help mark the weeks.)

I also gave them each a peg doll for their patron saints. Unfortunately we couldn’t go to church today because Moppet is sick, so it was a great help to have these little things to help us celebrate at home. These beautiful icon peg dolls are hand-painted by Emilia Reynolds who has an Etsy shop called The Tulip Patch. (She does many other beautiful things – go and look!) These peg dolls would be lovely gifts in your children’s Pascha baskets.