The Stamp & The Story.

What an inspiring story Timbres667,
what an extraordinary human being.
thanks for posting.

Rod
If you use the link to read the full text you got to know that De Sousa Mendes suffer allot because of what he did as a diplomat to help the refugee and recognition came only after his death.It's a great story among others during those terrible years of war.

Oh yes, of course I read the story Timbres667,
It has always been a sense of wonder in what separates
men/women of courage like theirs, with the rest of us.
History has numerous examples.
Young Sophie Scholl, 22 yo German lass was guillotined
as a result of her outstanding courage.

Of course Portugal as a nation, showed amazing courage
during the Iberian war, in opposing Napoleon.
Without such support we may be experiencing a differing
lifestyle today. The sacrifice by thousands of peasant
Portuguese villagers almost defies description.

Canadians are familiar with the Blue Jay, immortalized in William Campbell's poem Indian Summer which begins:

Along the line of smokey hills
The crimson forest stands
And all day long the Blue Jay calls
Throughout the autumn lands.

Legend tells us, however, that its lesser known cousin, the Gray Jay (Canada Scott#478) was, in many ways, more significant. After having finished making heaven and earth the "Creator" realized that the human that he/she had placed here was without a friend so he gave us the Gray Jay.

https://www.stampcommunity.org/uplo...grayjay1.JPG

Bush workers in the northern portions of our provinces are well aware of this friendly bird. In winter when they toast their sandwiches from their bush lunch over an open fire a Gray Jay (a.k.a. Whiskey Jack) will suddenly appear and almost always a second one. Without making a sound they will flit over to gently take a crust of bread from your hand when it is offered. Anyone who has walked for long distances in the bush will often be joined by one or even two for part of the journey as they flit from bush to bush beside you. They are indeed a religious experience.

There are many different types of Kangaroos and Wallabies in Australia. Some are referred as tree climbing, rock climbing, swamp living and the normal grassland, plains type. Some grow like weeds, other are in very small numbers.
There are some interesting things that roos can do.
A roo that has conceived can hold back the development of the baby roo for many years if there is very little food to go around.
The very common types of roos that reach plague proportions very easily can offer an extremely good source of meat. It is almost free of fat and has a good taste to it. Farming these animals for this purpose is becoming more popular as they do not destroy the land like beef and sheep do.
Roos are extremely spooked around vehicles and will commonly jump in front of cars, which is sad but it gets worse. If the roo goes through a windscreen of a car and is still alive, they kick the life out of the passengers in that car. We lost some friends this way.
One other dangerous part to roos is they will attack. They grab you with there front legs around your head, rock back on there tails and try to rip open your abdomen with there rear highly powerful legs. Just a bit of information on roos.

The Lyre Bird is special to myself and my wife and it goes back to before we were married.
In this period of time we spent about 2 years, a couple of days a week hunting for plants and animals to look at in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. It was totally amazing and found many different treasures in the natural science area.
For 18 months we searched for a lyre bird to look at but they are so easily scared off that we could only hear them running off into the thick scrub and never got a good look at one.
Until one day we decided to have lunch at a isolated spot that we found a family of platypus that we could see active at dusk at times. As we were eating our lunch 2 male lyre birds and one female started to do a mating dance within a few yards of us. The males were spreading there tail feathers to attract the female. They really put on a display for us, for about 15 mins. It is one of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. We knew what we had seen was very rare indeed. A total treasure of a memory we share.

KGV
Interesting stories about the kangaroo and the lyre bird which can be seen only in Australia. Here in Quebec it can be dangerous to on country roads when a deer or a moose is crossing. Last week a police man and a student policewoman had an accident and died after their car hit a deer causing the driver to lose control and after hit trees. Some say at night when the moose crossing the road see the headlights he freeze getting like hypnotize by them and causing accident. Just hitting a adult moose while driving a car can be deadly since it weight about 750 pounds.


Moose

Hi! Timbres

Those Moose are strong looking animals and I would not like to hit a 750lb one in a car or on a motor bike.
It is very sad when our civilized ways meet up with the wildlife.
We saw a couple of Moose in Sweden very close to the road we were on. We stopped the car, they were so close, to have a good look at them but they did not want to look at us. A very brief encounter. But special!

This set of international stamps is Australia's first release of this type of stamp. It took place in the year 2000 and is called the Devils Marbles set. This set of decimal stamps is the most expensive standard set issued in the decimal era as we know it.
They were introduced so no GST would be charged for overseas postage and because of this 10% of the stamps value must be taken off when used as postage in Australia. But if you use a normal Australian stamp that includes in its value the 10% GST, you cannot add 10% to the stamps value when using it for international post.
How does Australia Post get away with that one?

I'm not usually a fan of US stamps but this is one of my favourites.
The colours and simplistic design are stunning.



From wikipedia:
Slater Mill Historic Site, also known as Slater Mill or Old Slater Mill, is located on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Slater's Mill is the oldest still-standing cotton mill in America. Slater Mill is modeled after the mills in England where Samuel Slater, the mill's founder, had been apprenticed, as well as concept ideas copied from the Beverly Cotton Manufactory by Moses Brown of Providence, Rhode Island. Brown's family was one of the major owners of Slater Mill.

Slater Mill was built in 1793. It served as one of the first commercially viable water-powered roller cotton-spinning mill in the United States. Others were built before it that demonstrated different power technologies before water became a viable idea in the manufacturing process. It was used to convert raw cotton into cloth. Slater brought this new technology from England where he had learned it from Jedediah Strutt. Slater's design was based on Richard Arkwright's cotton spinning system which included carding, drawing, and spinning machines. Slater's "Rhode Island System" was later eclipsed by Francis Cabot Lowell's Waltham System.

Slater Mill has the distinction of carrying the first, lowest reference number in the National Register of Historic Places reference number series, although many hundreds of other sites were listed on the NRHP before it. The site was further designated a National Historic Landmark on the same date in 1966.

Thanks for posting AnthonyUK.
Your stamp is amazing!
There is so much detail. It must of taken the designer a long time to make that printing plate.
The stone work and the timber building attracts my eye.
The industry using green power to run everything is special.
And the story that goes with it, is as amazing as the stamp itself.

A really good extension to the information on the Australian lyrebird. This bird is also renowned for mimicking other noises as per first video link. The second link shows a males spreading his tail in a mating ritual ~ but one not as spectacular as the one we saw. Hope you like them. John & family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4uFUlmg_0E



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDc7NDV8EM

Wow! that was something else John! thanks.

Can't believe my hears. I thought for a second it's a tricky youtube. But it's not!