“I love Jersey cows because of their eyelashes,” says Allison Sturgill, herd manager at Chapel Hill Creamery. She finds “draft animal power amazing.” The farm is “passionate about cows as individuals;” Allison’s matching passion is evident when she talks about Breis and Fryer, twin oxen she trained since they were two months old. “An ox is a bovine trained to work.” Allison left for an oxen basic workshop in New Hampshire two days after their birth six years ago. Fryer was the nigh steer, always walking next to Allison and Breis was the off steer. Breis died suddenly in early November after this piece was originally written. Allison plans to honor Breis’s memory by continuing to bring draft animal power to the farm. According to Allison, the most bizarre thing about Breis’s death was that she left the farm to attend another workshop in New Hampshire about working with a single ox. “Then I came home to one.”
