Recipes and Recommendations for Imbibing Beauty through Books and Beverages
By Annie Nardone
Pages, Pints, and Pours invites you to take time to reconnect with the natural world and capture your experiences in your own nature journal.
THE PAGES: THE CURIOUS NATURE GUIDE BY CLARE WALKER LESLIE
“There are 1,440 minutes in each day, which we quickly fill. . . . Pause for a minute and stand still. Look around and just notice—the sky, tree shapes, birds, any plants or insects. Take a snapshot with your eyes. Breathe deeply; hear your heart. Close your eyes and listen.”
—Clare Walker Leslie, The Curious Nature Guide
You may know someone who always carries a notebook and pen. Or perhaps it’s a leather-bound journal and a box of Blackwing colored pencils secured with a cord. You spot pages filled with sketches and observations inspired by nature.
“Ahhh, yes,” you promise yourself, “I too will start this worthy endeavor and tap into my inner Audubon.” But how many blank journals and writing instruments have you purchased with good intentions, then shelved, because you just don’t know how to begin nature journaling?
The blank page, whether you are an author, artist, or just an aspiring nature journalist, is a daunting thing. Clare Walker Leslie’s The Curious Nature Guide is the inspiring first step. Seldom have I found a more delightful book than this one!
The Guide’s topics are presented in an image-filled, scrapbook style, including Leslie’s own sketches of whatever caught her eye. Some pages are watercolor landscapes, others are pencil sketches or photos. She also includes quotes from notable authors and naturalists.
But what ties the book together are her “Try This” prompts on many themes and nearly every page. For example, Leslie writes, “List six or seven nature observations you see, hear, or feel,” and “With string and four sticks, mark off a small section of lawn or other grassy area. . . . Make a list of everything you find.”
You’ll also read interesting ideas, like this: “We humans tend to use our eyes more than other senses when we are observing. Favor another sense for a while.” She recommends taking ten minutes in your day to sniff the flowers, listen to the birds, feel the tree bark, and see a myriad of tones and tints of color.
Clare Walker Leslie's essential gift is teaching (or reminding) you and I how to take the time to truly engage and reconnect with nature. This is the key to beginning your journal. She instructs us to “Begin where you are. No matter where you are right now, look up and out any window. Or step outside . . . Forget for a moment where you need to be and where you have come from.”
Rest and remember your memories that are inspired by things in nature: the smell of cut grass and clover, the feel of spring rain, the taste of the first berries of summer, or the ice-blast wind of winter, then record it in your journal with paint, ink, and poetic words. Carve out time for wonder and awe, reconnecting with the little miracles that surround you. Breathe deep, slow down, and ponder. The Curious Nature Guide will inspire you to pull that blank book off the shelf and begin!
“Brief images of nature can help stitch our days together. They can lift us above the humdrum of what we are doing and take us, if just for a moment, out into the vastness of nature. These brief images urge us beyond ourselves.”
—Clare Walker Leslie, The Curious Nature Guide
PINTS AND POURS
Inspired by a summer hike along a babbling brook, the following refreshments include botanicals and fruits that you might find (and journal about!) along the trail.
WILDFLOWER
1 ½ shot botanical gin
1 shot elderflower liqueur
2 shots tonic water
Blackberries
Pour all ingredients except berries into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a stemmed coupe glass. Garnish with blackberries.
BLACKBERRY LIMEADE
This sweet sipper is made with berries that grow wild in farm ditches and sunny meadows. (You may need to find them at a farmers market, or in your grocer’s frozen section.)
Pint of fresh blackberries, reserving a few for garnish.
½ can frozen limeade concentrate
1 liter lemon-lime soda
Place the berries in a small, fine mesh sieve and nest over a larger glass bowl. Gently smash the berries with the back of a spoon. Slowly pour the soda pop over the berries to wash the juice into the bowl. Place frozen limeade concentrate into a pretty pitcher and add the raspberry soda mixture. Stir, add ice, then add the reserved berries.
Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is a writer for Cultivating Oaks Press and An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found at Square Halo Press, Rabbit Room Press, Clarendon Press U.K., Calla Press, and Poetica. Annie is a Master Teacher with HSLDA and Kepler Education and strives to help her students see holiness in everyday life and art. She lives in Florida with her husband and six cats, appreciates the perfect cup of tea, an expansive library, and the beach with family.
[All quotes from Clare Walker Leslie, The Curious Nature Guide (Storey Publishing, 2015). I also recommend Leslie’s companion volume, Keeping a Nature Journal]
