Prickly Pear

I'm getting in touch with my inner cowboy. Today, after I wrote my column and did my laundry, I took a drive out in the country. Going south and east from Floresville the country opens up and the farthest edge of San Antonio is left behind. The sky was bigger than heaven and the wind was fresh. I saw the prickly pear by the barbed wire fence, up and down the road. I saw as if for the first time. I wanted to keep driving and never comeback, to buy some acres out there and build a small house, and keep a dog and few tomatoes in pots -- I would just let the brush grow. I would call it Brush Farm.

Do they have owls in Texas? If they do have owls, and if I buy my small plot and build a house, then I will come out late at night and walk toward the pasture and maybe I will see an owl -- or hear its silent wings.