Cuteness, with teeth

I was on my way home the other day when something darted across the road.  It was so thin, with a sharp face and long, trailing tail held out in line with its narrow body, that dart described its movements almost perfectly.  Legs scuttled rapidly under its body, making it travel with nary a bump or a squiggle, until it vanished on the far south edge of our property.  It was the color of a squirrel, but definitely not a squirrel.  I asked the girl to grab our copy of North American Wildlife and told her to turn the page to weasels.

Yep.  Sure enough.  I'm pretty sure it's the long-tailed weasel, but it could have been an ermine, too.  Just barely over a foot long including the tail, maybe six ounces of animal tops, they regularly kill rabbits.  Our cats are all over 6 pounds and they very, very rarely take on rabbits.  When they do, it's usually a juvenile.

Weasels, of course, are famous for wiping out whole coops of chickens.  So our days of forgetting to close in the chickens (forgetting=looking outside at the beautiful evening and thinking meh, they'll be fine) are over.  We have just the two, and I treasure my faithful biddies.

I knew this day was coming.  We have to fill in the floor of the coop with cement.  Dang it!  I guess we'll just have to do it in our copious spare time.

On the plus side, the weasel was adorable.  Seriously.  I can see why some people in medieval times kept ermines and such (very occasionally) as pets.  Ferrets are cute too.  Will I have one as a pet, ever?  No thanks.  But I'll play with the ones my friends keep any time.