Discovery

Jeope Wolfe at Jeopopolis wondered what it would be like to discover a hippo in her closet.

How to pack a hippo

The United States Postal Service has some handy instructions for movers on how to pack their valuable belongings. Included, of course, is How To Pack Hippos:

The packing list includes: 1,000-gallon tank (per hippo), crane, 1-pound sedative, soothing hippo music, and two aspirin (for you).

Hippo prefers to travel by chauffeur. His packing list includes hat, sunglasses, rain poncho, swimming trunk, cookies, and a book.

How to feed a hippo

An animal keeper from the National Zoo told the Washington Post what 27-year-old Happy the hippopotamus likes to eat:

The 6,000-pound hippo consumes seven pounds of herbivore pellets, 4 1/2 pounds of fruits and vegetables and 35 pounds of hay -- in one day. Wild hippos consume as much as 88 pounds of grass per night, but as a percentage of their body weight (1 to 1.5 percent), that's only about half the amount required by other hoofed mammals.

The shopping list for the whole zoo includes 6,000 pounds of apples, 2,000 pounds of oranges, 2,000 pounds of papayas, and 1,200 ears of corn on the cob. That sounds like a nice picnic!

Stop to smell the roses

Sometimes, a Hippo just has to stop and smell the roses.


Just watch out for bumblebees!

Naval Observatory

On sunny summer days, I like to walk around and play tourist. A couple weeks ago I walked by the Naval Observatory.

It's a pretty cool place – one of the oldest scientific agencies in America. They also keep the official time! Very useful for a Hippo without a watch. I'm not sure why they look at belly buttons, though.


Then I realized that I can't find my belly button! I'd better check if my friend has one.


I wonder how long I have to watch before it does something. Maybe this naval observation is harder than it sounds.

Eco-Hippo

I'm an outdoorsy kind of Hippo, as most hippos are. So I like to go for a hike in some of our national parks when I get a chance. It has rained a lot lately, but I didn't let a little water stop me. I wanted to see what the high water levels of the Potomac River looked like from the Overlook at Great Falls National Park.


WOW! That's a lot of water and some really rough currents! While I was there, I waved at people in Virginia, just across the river. I think some of them waved back.


With water that high, there was also some flooding that carried HUGE piles of trash out of the river. That makes me kind of sad.


Parks should be kept trash-free. If there aren't trash cans, you should always carry out what you carried in, and maybe even clean up a little while you're there. I can't carry a trash bag big enough to clean up the whole mess, but I did my part by recycling a plastic bag as a stylish rain poncho!

Googly eye exam

Hippo is very friendly (and he has a bit of an imagination). Sometimes he finds new friends in the oddest places that nobody else thought to look. Here's a fellow with a bulbous nose whom he met at the library.


His eyes are a little googly, so you know he's lots of fun. Hippo has discovered that there is even a web site where other people share photos of their googly eye friends!