Finally got warm enough yesterday afternoon to actually go outside. Still to muddy to do much work out there, but there were other things to do so that was no problem. For me it was time to finally get the new miter saw and stand out and actually set it up. Other than weighing in at nearly 100 lbs, although they still call it portable, it is so cool. Now I just need to find an outlet somewhere out in the garage/barn area that actually has a working outlet to plug into. To say the electrical system out there is scary is a real understatement. When I went in to check out a short in one of the electrical lines, it was fun to find that some mouse had built a nest in the circuit breaker box. Needless to say, that will have to be redone at some point, hopefully soon.
    Rima actually made it home before dark last night so we had a little time to just sit out on the deck and watch the river down below and the ground hog eating grass out in the pasture. We had a couple friends over for dinner, so there was some cooking to be done. Luckily there had been proper ingredients in the house to throw together some Chicken Tangine over rice. Add in a salad and some peach-blueberry crisp for dessert. It was great.
    Hope to be able to get out and get some work done this afternoon. There is one more post to set in the piece of fence I've been working on. Unfortunately it means also having to remove an existing post first, so it will take some work to get that done. For now though... here are a few more pictures from my visit to the Belz Art Museum in Memphis last weekend.

Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art in Memphis Tennessee Mar 2014

   

A sample of the pottery displayed in the museum.

There are evidently 18 separate individuals who are important and key in the Buddhist religion, so there were many different statues, pictures and carvings of them throughout the museum. This was just one set, but I liked the detail they put into each individual porcelain statue. 

A view from the other side of the room showing the rest of the statues. 

A close up of one of the individuals. The detail on each statue was breathtaking. You could also just 'feel' that these were pretty ancient pieces of art. 

One more close up. I took all of these photo's with my phone camera so the quality isn't as good as I would like. But it is still good enough to see that these are pretty cool. 

A view down one wall showing more carved jade statues. Note that all of the pieces except the center one are in matching pairs.

This is what is known as a 'Mystery Ball'. Carved from one solid piece of ivory or precious stone, they are carved with from three to forty two separate layers. So each of those little pieces you can see are an individual little ball within another ball. This one is one of those with 42 separate layers and I find that just fascinating. 

One other mystery ball, this one with fewer, but still quite a few layers. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around how much skill and patience it must take to create one of these masterpieces. 

A whole carved jade mountain.

One more large carved jade sculpture. 

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