Hanging out with my own kind

Sorry I've been such a bad little blogger lately. I have been working really hard (68 hours this week, including 16 yesterday.

One of the fun things about working on the farm is that I see lots of wildlife on a daily basis. There are tons of really neat birds on the ponds around the land that we farm. I check in daily to see how all the little ducklings are doing as they paddle awkwardly behind their mom. I also see squirrels, gophers (the dead ones I trap), jackrabbits, cotton-tail rabbits, skunks, mice and coyotes on a daily basis.
But today I saw something I have never seen before....
I think this is a pretty good picture considering I took it with my camera phone (the screen of which I cannot see in the sun), from about 10 feet up on the top of a water truck tank.

So let me set that stage. I was putting water into a water truck, and I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was a squirrel, but as it got closer it looked more like a weasel. I didn't think there were any weasels in the area, and its color was different than any weasel I'd ever seen. I got a great look at it as it came closer. It seemed to be as curious about me as I was about it. It would come out from behind a rock, look at me, then dart behind another rock a little closer to me. Eventually, it was within arms length of me, but he was too quick to let me get a picture of him at close range. Once he got close enough to see what I was all about, he quickly became bored and moved on (I guess women and weasels have a lot in common).
After some internet research, I am certain that it was a long-tailed weasel, which is "native" (not native in the sense that it has always been there, but in the sense that it was introduced a really long time ago and is now a part of the ecosystem without causing too many problems) to most of north america.

I guess they kill lots of small burrowing rodents which is good for us. So I say to my new rodent friend, "Kill on, weasel! Kill on!"