This is less of a real recipe than an excuse to post pictures of berries.

They’re just so beautiful.  And so special. I love berries and they’re insanely nutritious, too.

The strawberries were first, then the black raspberries, and now finally some blackberries have started to ripen.  We’ll have a few blueberries later, but since I hacked them down big time last year, the harvest will be meager for another couple of years.

I know there are some people who for various reasons don’t like berries, and I’m trying hard not to be judgmental, but I’m a little worried about you.  I mean: LOOK AT THIS:

RUSTIC BERRY TART

One-Crust pie crust recipe, yours or mine found here. (Note: this recipe makes 2 crusts, just halve the ingredients and proceed as per the recipe)

3-4 cups fresh mixed berries, whatever you can get your hands on.

nice glob of honey, to taste, and depending on how tart your berries are

chopped “tea” herbs, especially the lemony ones–I used lemon balm and lemon verbena, about 1 Tablespoon finely chopped

1-2 Tablespoons butter

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Make and roll out the pie crust.  Place it on a baking sheet.

3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the berries (if using strawberries, slice them first) the honey, and the herbs.

4. Pour the berries carefully into the center of the pie crust.  Dot with the butter.

5. Gently fold over the sides of the pie crust over the berries.  Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. This is a “rustic” tart.

6. Bake in oven until the crust is golden brown on the edges and the berry juices are bubbly and irresistible

Sorry no finished photo. I was too concerned with eating it to take a picture.

Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or creme fraiche would be good on this, but I didn’t need to tell you that, did I?

We had a little robin fall out of his next two days ago.  Actually it fell out of my neighbor’s tree onto my driveway.  Luckily, it was unhurt.  But, then the whole neighborhood of kids was all over it!  I had them set it in the flower bed while I rushed to the interwebs for answers.

#1  The thing about the bird smelling you or the baby losing it’s scent is a myth.  Birds don’t have a great sense of smell anyway.  Good thing, since all the little girls carried it around for ten minutes.

#2 Get the baby off the ground.  We put ours in a hanging basket that we hooked on the neighbor’s basketball goal. See?

#3 Birds don’t feed the babies at night, but they do it about every 20 minutes during the day.  So, keep an eye out (from very far away or inside the house) and see if one of the parents is visiting.  Our baby definitely had at least one parent that came and went all of the next day.

#4 If the parents have re-established contact and you mess with the baby and she yells, the parents will go BANANAS on you.  Stupid bird kept jumping out, so we keep adding more stuff to the basket.  The baby got MAD when we moved her and the parents dive bombed me and apparently had the relatives over for dinner because there were 4 robins screaming at me.  YIKES.  I can’t lie.  I was a bit traumatized.

Now, if for some reason you think that BOTH bird parents are DEAD, you can go to the bait shop and get some worms.  Feed baby every 20 minutes all day long.