Insects represent some of the planet's most bizarre – yet familiar – and enchanting life forms. Some can be as intricately delicate as a butterfly, while others can be as tough and gnarly as some beetles.
The community eagerly anticipated the Turtle Bay Auction, and this year's event did not disappoint. The theme was "Off to The Races," and guests arrived dressed in their finest Kentucky Derby-inspired ensembles. They were greeted by a stunning display of decorations that transported them to Churchill Downs.
Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, CA, partners with Coleman Fish Hatchery every year to raise and release chinook salmon to the Sacramento River as a part of the Head Start Program. This is one of the many ways Turtle Bay takes active part in conservation efforts for local wildlife.
How providential that we are able to present this perfectly pleasing yet peculiar pickle paraphernalia! This is not your ordinary pickle jar! In fact, it probably didn’t hold the type of pickles we are most familiar with today – those delicious, tangy, former cucumbers. Before the ubiquity of refrigeration, jams, jellies, pickles, and chutneys preserved produce for future consumption. Victorian pickle recipes included sweet pickled cantaloupe, pickled onions, cauliflower, cabbage, radish pods, nasturtium seeds, walnuts, as well as the more familiar gherkins and cucumbers. Spiced or pickled fruits such as sour plums, blackberries, cherries, and pears were also popular. Yum!
You may think this is a horn to blow – a type of trumpet to gather the troops and charge into battle! Though these objects were sometimes used in battle, by local militiamen during the Revolutionary War for example, powder horns served a different purpose. In addition to bullets and the firearms themselves, powder horns carried another important part of the kit – gunpowder!
Long before we cozied up for a movie with a bowl of popcorn and a loved one, shuffled through our iPod playlist, cheered to a baseball game on the radio, or sheltered-in-place, folks sought live entertainment in the company of friends and strangers. It was both intimate and communal. Performances such as plays, operas, ballets – even music, magic, and comedy – took place on a big, well-lit stage. Patrons sat in a darkened auditorium. Some were close enough to see the sweat of an actor’s brow, yet some sat too far to make out important details that helped tell the story. Sporting events like horse racing also presented a need to see the action from a distance. Luckily, a series of technological advances led to an elegant solution – opera glasses.
Sometimes, the internet is a curator’s friend. For 42 years, this Artifact of the Month has been misidentified in our records. The donor thought that her late husband had passed on to her a 50-yen banknote that he’d acquired when he was stationed in Japan during World War II. She noted in her correspondence, that it had been worth “about 20 American dollars when he got it.” When the Redding Museum of Art and History received the donation in 1978, they did not have immediate access to the resources required to verify or refute this identification, so it went into the records as “yen.”
Hopefully, you have had a chance to see one of our permanent exhibitions focused on two of our local icons: Shasta Dam and Sundial Bridge. These two structures offer an architectural snapshot of our rich history and our relationship with water.
Presented by Dignity Health
