About Us
Meet Dylan
Photo Credit: Ben Bishop
Photo Credit: Paul Collins
Dylan is the founder of Boek House Hearth & Husbandry, serving as head shepherd and butcher. Raised in Southern California, this first-generation shepherd and rancher is sharing his passion for revitalizing a lost food culture and Southern California land through the produce that regenerative land management has to offer.
While studying and apprenticing under Larry Santoyo in permaculture design, he turned his focus towards broad scale landscape regeneration solutions and found holistic planned grazing through at the Savory Institute. He received his professional accreditation in Holistic Management through the Central California Savory Hub, White Buffalo Land Trust, and went on to begin developing livestock experience at Five Bar Beef, a holistically managed grass fed beef operation. He then went on to become Head Shepherd and Project Manager at the contract grazing outfit, Shepherdess Land and Livestock, in Ojai, California. It was here where Dylan began grazing livestock and providing meat to his community. This reflected the gastronomical philosophy he was starting to form, and a respect for the animal in its wholeness, as well as the landscape they were raised in.
Dylan established Boek Hose Hearth & Husbandry to help restore our relationships with the land, the meat we eat, and foundational virtues of culture that have been in decline. By introducing livestock to a diverse array of forage that goes beyond "grass-fed”, his animals get access to the whole of the nutrients the land has to offer. By using management practices that reflect the natural patterns of the landscape, his approach to livestock restores and revitalizes the ecology of the land they inhabit.
His academic background includes degrees from CU Boulder in Biology with a focus on conservation, as well as Environmental Studies focused on natural resource management.
Outside of Boek House Hearth & Husbandry, Dylan also serves as Project Manager and Lead Shepherd of Shepherdess Land and Livestock, providing prescribed grazing services with herds of sheep and goats in the Ojai Valley and LA County. He’s also an Accredited Professional in Holistic Management through the Savory Institute, and works as an Ecological Outcomes Verification Monitor for the Savory Institute’s Land to Market program. Dylan also serves as the Ventura chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
The Boek House Difference
This is beyond “grass-fed” meat. Our nutrient-dense, flavor-filled products are a result of grazing our livestock on everything the Southern California landscape has to offer. From oats and thistles, to elderberry and coast live oak, they all contribute to a more complex and diverse diet that’s unlike anything you’ll find from commercial suppliers.
We are doing more than just raising meat. Boek House has adopted regenerative grazing practices that revitalize the land we graze on.
Serving the community that supports our business. Our business is the result of a community’s desire for locally sourced, ethically raised, and ecologically beneficial products. By knowing how their food was raised, where it grazed, and the amount of care that went into each animal, they’re ensuring the highest positive impact on the land while benefiting from our beyond grass-fed products.
If you see him around town, say hi! We believe there’s no label better than knowing your local shepherd and butcher. Want to know even more? Ask Dylan about coming to see how our livestock is raised in action!
The Regenerative Way
Boek House is working to reinvigorate a return to holistic culinary practices. We believe that every part of the animal has something to offer. This leads to less waste, more nutritional value, and a correction from wasteful, modern, large-scale processing normally associated with what we eat.
By specializing in whole, half, and primary cuts of our animals, we are promoting a communal culinary culture that has been lost to the commercialization of food. This serves as a reminder to our community about the immense value and importance of cooking and eating together in a world of increasingly disconnected, divided and estranged food culture.
Land that is viable for agriculture is on a rapid decrease. This is a result of the widespread use of commercialized agricultural practices, including discing, pesticides, GMO’s, just to name a few.
Regenerative agricultural practices offer us an alternative. Not only are we improving the land which our animals feed, increasing fire mitigation, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration, but it also provides a stability for the future that’s not found in highly centralized forms of industrial meat production. As the population continues to grow, localized food, nutrient-rich meat, and land-preserving management practices are the best means to secure a healthy community and push for a world worth living in.