Jim Barr removes a photo from his bulletin board, and places it on his wooden desk. In the photo, Jim, age 8, wears a cowboy hat and looks at home as he sits on his first horse. The horse’s name was Ginger.

“There was a wild west show called Nelson’s Wild West…a travelling tent show. They had teams and wagons, and the whole works with ‘em. They stopped at Diamond Springs at the stockyard. They had a little Shetland pony mare that a monkey rode and he jumped hurdles. That mare had a colt, and when the outfit came by our place, Dad ran out and stopped it. ‘What about that colt? Would you sell it?’ Yes, they’d sell it. He paid twenty-five dollars, which was a lot of money in those days. I was five.”

That was 87 years ago, on property up Diamond Creek Road Jim’s grandfather bought over a hundred years ago. Jim was born there. His brother still owns it. There are deep roots.

Having spent his life as a cowboy and auctioneer, Jim doesn’t think there is much of a future in it for the individual. There will always be a need for someone to manage cattle, but it’s work for young men. “When you get older, people ought to have the sense to quit.”

Cowboys today have it easy. Or easier, at least. Jim used to get up in the morning and ride 10 miles by horseback just to get to work, minding cattle, and then ride 10 miles back. “Now days, that work is done by ATV or four-wheel drive truck,” he says. Fencing, too, is better. Today’s steel fences can better contain cattle, which aren’t as likely to get out and wander.

Part of Jim’s work would involve riding fence line, mending breaks, and rounding up cattle if needed. Sometimes he would use Bois D’Arc, or Osage Orange trees, for posts. Black Walnut, if any were to be found. Trees are most often found along creek beds, not out in the prairie. It’s hard to find wooden posts anymore. They’ve rotted and been replaced with steel T-posts. He laments that I wasn’t there a few weeks earlier when the town of Cottonwood Falls had a BBQ, fueled by smoke from the remains of old Bois D’Arc fenceposts people had brought in. I do, too.

A lot of fences in the Flint Hills are made of dry-stacked stone, not barbed wire. A good example sits a few miles south of Jim’s place, along a curve heading into Matfield Green. This fence has been restored using original stone, and it’s impressive. “My brother and I did the math one time. We figured it would take two men and two horses a day to gather and stack stone for a rod of fence. A rod is 16 and a half feet. They’d probably have been paid $2.”

Jim’s days on horseback are probably over, but not his enthusiasm. He shows me several pair of spurs he made. One pair has a diamond, spade, club and heart embossed in the metal. I ask if he is a card player. “Nope,” he responds. Another incorporates half-dollars. “I figure they’re worth at least that much,” he offers. I wager they’re worth more. Stenciled in the metal are Jim’s initials and the number 72.  I ask if that were the year he made them.

“No, that was my seventy second pair. I’ve made over a hundred. I always felt that if I was riding a horse and didn’t have spurs on, I was underdressed.”

When I ask about what the cattle prefer to eat, Jim walks me to his garage where he has a display of native grasses attached to the wall. Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switchgrass, and Indian Grass. I ask for his picture next to the grass blades, and he obliges. Later, before I leave, he says, “I sure wish you’d have taken my picture in my cowboy hat and not this dumb ballcap.”

“Grab your hat,” I say. He eagerly switches out cap for hat, and his demeanor changes completely. Now he’s at home.