If you have to ask why anyone would have mice as pets, then you’re not the kind of person who’s going to understand. Mice are very sweet, quizzical little creatures who are natural clowns. The black plague was due to fleas, not mice.

Anyhow, when I first got mice, I took the word of the books that I’d read that six would be perfectly happy in a ten gallon aquarium. Well, they fought a lot, so I sent two back to the pet store and moved the others into a twenty gallon tank. They still seemed rather bored.

Hence, this ‘mouserie,’ which is five feet by five feet in area. I would like to show more plants and play stuff but the plants that I downloaded from Google 3D Warehouse slowed down Sketchup like you wouldn’t believe. I think I’d be better off ‘making’ my own plants, which I did with the grass clumps.

The hamster wheel should probably be shrunk by a factor of two to mouse size. Maybe. I got the wheel from Warehouse as with the plant photos and the mouse template, but everything else in the image was made by me. I was going to say that I am proud of the water bottle and stand assembly, but now that I look at it, I realize that the stand should hold the top of the bottle better. Another time.

The gray mouse is Susie, the black mouse is Walter. Annabelle and Agatha (Aggie) are the whites on the left, Mabel is on the right. Muriel (who is a catnip toy) isn’t shown. Let’s pretend she’s in the hut. (Mental Note: Put Muriel in hut.)

This play area would be outside. The bedding would be natural earth, exposed to rain so that there is no cleaning requirement. The equipment can be soaked in detergent for half an hour each week, and that’s the only maintenance. Otherwise, replacing the bedding and washing the walls can be time-consuming.

Maybe I could make a little mousie elevator so that they could ride up to a tunnel that would allow them to come inside to a five gallon tank when it was cold outside.

The wall may seem a bit high, and for the girls it probably is. But Walter could all but fly.

Yes, past tense. But for now, let’s not dwell on that.