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Welcome to the Morning Star Update
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Greetings!
June was a fine month at the B &
B. We had lovely guests from near and far, including South African
business travelers, KSU parents from Texas and Wyoming, vacationers from Washington and Alaska, and folks from Kansas in for Country Stampede. Bill and I worked on several house projects and had the trim work painted to keep The Morning Star looking pretty, while one of my helpers and I spent many hours working in the
gardens. Early summer rains helped keep everything lush. In addition, I was delighted by all of the positive response that we had to the June issue - the first issue - of The Morning Star Update. I hope that you will enjoy the tips and recommendations in this, the second issue.  
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Morning Star Readers' Picks
Marilyn from Maryland kindly gave me a copy of the Pulitzer Prize winning John Adams by David McCullough. For history buffs, it and its follow-up volume, 1776, are
well worth reading.
John Adams is a fascinating book about courage and peril, honor and sacrifice, international diplomacy and intrigue, family and political life, fame and corruption, and the intense commitment of one man to the ideal of government by law.
1776, an equally fascinating book, is about military affairs during the beginning of the Revolutionary War. In it McCullough details not only battles, stratagems, geography, outbreaks of disease and the role of weather in deciding turns of events, but also the daily lives and motivations of participants on both sides of the conflict.
Together these volumes illuminate numerous aspects of the war and the early years of the United States.
Click here to let me know what you think of these books or to recommend ones that you've read recently.
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Blueberry Cream Pie
This light and decadent summer dessert is a variation of a pie that my mother and I both like to make.
for the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix together crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon until evenly moistened. Press firmly into a 9-inch pie pan. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool before filling.
for the filling:
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 cup whipping cream
Beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar, vanilla and orange extracts. In a separate bowl, whip cream. Beat in cream cheese mixture just until a uniform consistency is achieved. (You can make the filling in a small food processor, but it will not have quite as much volume as you would get using a beater with a whisk attachment.)
to assemble:
cooled crust
filling
1 3/4 cups fresh blue berries
strawberries, raspberries and/or mint leaves for garnish
Pour filling into crust. Chill pie in refrigerator for an hour. Meanwhile wash berries and mint leaves, if using. Let drain. Gently dry with a paper towel. Top filling with blueberries and press them lightly into the filling. Cover pie with plastic wrap. Chill for several hours or until serving. Garnish slices with strawberries, raspberries and/or mint leaves.
Click here to let me know how you like this pie or to pass along one of your recipes.
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Work Time for Iris-Lovers
Bearded irises, are one of my favorite flowers. For they are stately, fragrant and hardy.
They are also prolific spreaders. Each rhizome blooms only once in its life time, but will produce other rhizomes which it nourishes. Within a few years, this can lead to overcrowding.
When needed, bearded irises should be thinned 6-8 weeks after blooming. Around here they bloom throughout May, making mid to late July the time to divide them.
At The Morning Star, we dig ours up, clean them off, fertilize the beds, discard any sickly rhizomes and the oldest "mother" rhizomes which are long done being floriferous, cut back the foliage and replant the healthy irises. Since we have thousands of rhizomes in our beds, we'll do about one quarter of them each year. The beauties pictured above are Iris germanica 'Red at Night'.
Click here to pass along your gardening tips.
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I hope that you have enjoyed this issue of The Morning Star Update as much as I have enjoyed working on it. I look forward to hearing from you and to seeing you soon. Have a great July!
Sincerely,
Laurie Pieper
The Morning Star Bed & Breakfast
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Konza Prairie
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Offering scenic vistas of rolling hills and wide open sky, and home to flora and fauna large and small, Konza Prairie is truly a natural wonder and is right here for us in North East Kansas to experience. Just minutes South of Manhattan, the 8,616 acrea preserve is the largest remnant of never plowed tallgrass prairie in North America. It is owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University and is run as a field research station by the KSU Division of Biology. Though much of it is closed to the public, there are three walking trails (2.5 miles, 4.4. miles and 6 miles) that wind through forest and tallgrass, across Kings Creek and past the Hokansen Homestead, and allow the visitor a chance to appreciate this vital part of the Flint Hills. 
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Local Historic Sites and Museums
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With Independence Day bringing American History to mind, July is a great month for visiting historical points of interest in and around Manhattan.
* Manhattan's Downtown Historic District
* Goodnow House Museum
* Wolf House Museum
* Fort Riley and its historical musuems: First Territorial State Capitol, Custer House, U. S. Cavalry Museum and the Fort Riley First Regimental Museum
* Santa Fe Trail and historic sites, Council Grove
* Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene
* Kansas Museum of History, Topeka
* Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Site, Topeka
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Dates to Remember
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July 3rd-5th: Independence Day at the Ranch, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Chase County
July 4th: 4th at the Zoo, Sunset Zoo
July 4th: Thunder Over Manhattan, Cico Park
July 17th: KSU Military and Veterans Campus Visit Day
July 18th: Little Apple Jazz Festival
July 23rd-25th: Dog Days in Aggieville
July 23rd-27th: Riley County Fair
July 25th: Flint HIlls Iris Society Annual Sale, KSU Gardens
July 31st: Arts in the Park Zoo Concert,Terry Quiett Band, Sunset Zoo
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Iris germanica 'Thornbird'
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