About Us
Our Work
We are internationally recognized for our work on fire prevention and ecological enhancement services focused on managing vegetation using holistic prescribed grazing methods with goats and sheep. We value comprehensive land stewardship practices, and pair our ecological services with efforts to engage the community through education.
Pastoralism plays a critical role in protecting environments, sequestering carbon, and enhancing biodiversity while providing highly nutritious food for people across the planet. We believe that this modern approach to the ancient trade of shepherding is the future of livestock in California and across the Western United States.
Meet the Shepherdess
Cole Bush, known as ‘The Urban Shepherdess,’ is an entrepreneur, advocate, and creative liberator in the fields of climate-beneficial agriculture, land stewardship, and prescribed grazing. She is the founder of Shepherdess Land and Livestock - a prescribed grazing company based in Ojai, California, Holistic Hides - a purveyor of mindfully sourced sheep hides, and Grazing School of The West - a non-profit 501(c)3 multidisciplinary vocational training program that has trained over 200 people.
Cole has been featured in over 40 media outlets, including ELLE France, The Guardian, and The Conversationalist. Cole sits on the advisory board for Soil Centric, the targeted grazing committee for California Wool Growers Association, California Board of Forestry advisory committee for California Range Management, she is the co-founder of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council’s Community Supported Grazing Program, and she is a member of The Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Cole has spoken at over two-dozen industry events, including Farmer Campus, Bioneers Conference, Regenerate Conference, and Groundwork: Symposium.
Please email Kate Barney at katebarney@gmail.com with any press or speaking requests.
Photo credit: Paul Mirah CollinsMeet Our Core Team
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DIANE ANASTASIO
Adjunct Shepherd, Creative Collaborator & Fiber Flock Specialist
Diane Anastasio planted theirr feet in agriculture through overlapping explorations of food systems, nutrition and a deep desire to carry on the work of her agrarian ancestors. Before working with Shepherdess Land & Livestock, Diane worked as a nutritionist, as a cook in a fermentation-focused Oakland restaurant, and as a butcher, pasta-maker and livestock-tender on a Vermont farm. Diane has also more recently taken up weaving with wool, bridging the intersections of climate-beneficial fibers, prescribed grazing and craftsmanship. As an adjunct member of the Shepherdess team, Diane has spent the past two years immersed in shepherding and lambing, managing the home ranch in Ojai, coordinating fiber-related events, and developing the Grazing School of the West training program.
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JOHN FRAHER
Operations Manager & Lead Shepherd
John Fraher, landing at Shepherdess Land & Livestock, ended a years-long search for the perfect job: gainful employment that could serve a community from the people down to the mycelium. John finds passion in creating safer, more resilient and diverse ecologies in a way that challenges him most physically and intellectually.
His critical role on the team as Operations Manager & Foreman ranges from coordinating transportation and operational logistics, grueling labor in extreme heat, to company jester, team on-boarding and administrative duties.
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DYLAN BOEKEN
Project Manager; Owner of Boek House Hearth and Husbandry, the “brother business” to Shepherdess L&L
Dylan Boeken is a practitioner of regenerative land management as Lead Shepherd and Project Manager for Shepherdess Land and Livestock Co., an entrepreneur in local protein production and purveyance as the Proprietor of Boek House Hearth and Husbandry, and a consultant in regenerative land systems design and ecological verification monitoring.
From obtaining his degree in Natural Resource Management and Evolutionary Biology with a focus in Conservation, he has accumulated practical experience in implementing broad-scale land regeneration through agricultural practices including prescribed grazing with ruminants, Permaculture Design, and Holistic Management.
A Closer Look at What We Do
