Oh, Mark, you’ve done it again. I haven’t thought much about harvest mice since my college mammalogy class, and probably only then because they are the smallest types of mice (only a little bigger than shrews). But not only do I mash on you:
![new-mt new-mt](http://snarkitupfuzzball.nexiliscom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/new-mt.jpg)
but I look up photos of the sweet little things (even if that’s a bunch of very large berries, that’s still one very small mouse):
![harvest-mouse-and-berries harvest-mouse-and-berries](http://snarkitupfuzzball.nexiliscom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/harvest-mouse-and-berries.jpg)
and find out, with the intensive farming methods used today, the British harvest mouse lives in a very dangerous habitat, its round ball of grasses that serves as a nest no match for machinery. Fortunately, clever Brits have discovered that old tennis balls from Wimbledon make sturdy manufactured housing for the wee ones in various wildlife preserve areas:
![harvest-mouse-nest harvest-mouse-nest](http://snarkitupfuzzball.nexiliscom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/harvest-mouse-nest.jpg)
Of course, there are always a few that are somewhat more militant in defending themselves (“That’s no moon…”):
![harvest-mouse-death-star harvest-mouse-death-star](http://snarkitupfuzzball.nexiliscom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/harvest-mouse-death-star.jpg)