Architect-turned-cowboy Bob West to read at Niwot's Una Vida Friday May 26

After 35 years as an award-winning Boulder-based architect, Bob West retired in 2015, and bought a Wyoming ranch to raise Scottish Highland cattle.

His memoir, "Twenty Miles of Fence: Blueprint of a Cowboy," co-written with Janet Fogg, describes the-at times-bumpy transition to life as a rancher along the North Laramie River. Accompanied by his family and trading what he called the "yuppie haven" of Boulder for the Devil's Washtub Ranch, West learned, sometimes the hard way, the joys and challenges of being a cowboy with twenty miles of fence, 3,200 deeded acres, and 154 head of black angus.

The book was the final collaboration by award-winning Longmont author Janet Fogg, a beloved novelist, historian, and a devoted mentor to fellow members of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.

Fogg died in April of this year. "Twenty Miles of Fence" is full of humorous vignettes (for example, "A Bouncing Baby Bull") that at the same time display the writers' deep reverence for the land and a slower pace of life where "you can hear the sun set."

West's reading, sponsored by Inkberry Books, will take place at 6:00 p.m. on Friday May 26 at Una Vida in Cottonwood Square, with a reception to follow at Inkberry Books.