Sunday Stamps - Lions or lambs: India. Iran

They say that March comes in like a lion but goes out like a lamb. All I can say is that this year March came in earlier in February with the very strong winds and there are no lambs about, with the latter rather like my stamps. Even the lions proved a bit sparse too until I found four back to back.

This became the official Emblem of India in 1950. It is a representation of the Capital on the Ashoka Pillar. The Lion Capital of Ashoka itself now resides in an Indian museum; it was carved out of a single block of polished sandstone.

The Capital appears on India's official postage stamps.

India - 1957

I found another design also showing the Capital with detail I hadn't noticed until I scanned this stamp.

India 1967

I'd missed that Refugee Relief completely.

From Iran I found a different lion - 

Iran - 1950 to 1976

This was a postal tax stamp issued to benefit the Red Lion and Sun Society of Iran. The Society was established in 1922 and admitted to the International Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement in 1923. Because of its association with the late Shah it was replaced with the Red Crescent as in other Muslim countries.

For real lions and hopefully some lambs check out what others have posted by following the links at Sunday Stamps - lion

By hook or by crook - Sepia Saturday

They tell me shepherds once used a crook in their work I wonder how many shepherds there were about when the megaliths were put up at Almendres Cromlech in Portugal. 

Inverted shepherd's crook

Apparently the crook was a common motif on the local megaliths.

A shepherd in Croatia needed a dog and a crook to keep his flock under control in the snow near Jagodnjak.

Croatian shepherd with his flock

The Hungarian village of Ricse commemorated its shepherd in a statute but he just carried a stout staff and apparently had no dog.

Shepherd Well

In the early 1950s I had close encounters with sheep - well, with their fleeces at least. As a school holiday job with the Stamford firm of Central Wool Growers, initially at their Wothorpe plant and later in the new premises on Uffington Road.

Fleeces delivered from farms were examined and graded for quality by a Yorkshire man named Ben Waterhouse. He threw them into bins according to their breeds. Our gang of school boys then had to put them into bales and stamp them down with our feet.

Back then, my hands were the softest they have ever been due the effect of the lanolin in the wool.

A less pleasant job however was the baling of dags - the wool clippings from around a sheep's back end. My trouser legs had a very interesting smell - lanolin, and a ranker aroma which would keep any dogs away.

Now the nearest I get to sheep and lambs are those in a local field.

A Spring 'creche'

Seems a shame that soon it will be time for mint sauce.

Perhaps their mum will provide some protection - 

before it's time for lamb chops.

Don't feel sheepish, please visit Sepia-Saturday-329. for alternative views - any black sheep out there I wonder?

Attributions:

• Inverted shepherd's crook; 26 May 2006 by Xyz11234, Public Domain
• Croation shepherd, 3 May 2009 by Ljabornir Damjanovic, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Shepherd Well, Ricse; 4 August 2007 by Ramirez Hun, Public Domain

Critters - Thematic Photography

I showed two local critters last week under the 'Summer' theme. Before I started today I had to check just what a critter was - a living creature I found out, a creature being an animal other than a human.That restricted me as I could not, I thought, consider birds and reptiles.

Giraffe in a Yorkshire wildlife park (c1970)

Foal - Norway (1980s)

He or she will be quite an age by now.

I wouldn't happy to be in the water with a beast like this.

Hippo (Detroit Zoo 2006)

I would however have been quite content to have a ride on these - 

Donkeys preparing for a days work (Whitby 2008)

But they said I was too old!

Lambs (Egglescliffe,  March 2006)

From the rear end of a donkey and that uncooperative lamb I'm left with a ewe that must be on Facebook.

Ewe and its lamb (June 2014)

But don't you just hate it when they show off they have been tagged.

Tagged and shorn (not Shaun)

For other contrary critters follow the links at Carmi's thematic-photographic-299.