Dances With Cows

Congratulations! You have chosen to download Dances With Cows! I hope you enjoy viewing this video clip as much as I enjoyed seeing this action live and in person! When your computer finishes retrieving it, click once with your left mouse button on the still photo of the cows to start the action!

If you enjoy this clip, please send me e-mail! If you don't enjoy this clip, please keep your opinions to yourself! <grin> If you have trouble getting the video to display properly, please see the help message at the bottom of this page--maybe the video didn't transfer correctly to your computer.

You are now one of the elite people who have seen this video clip!

While you're waiting for this clip to download, here's more information about Tom and his cows.

The cow's name is Rambler, and she weighed about 500 pounds at the time this video was taken in 1994. Rambler doesn't dance any more, ever since she had her first calf. She has settled down into being a respectable cow.

Whenever a female calf is born to one of Tom's cows, he gives her the name of a model of car. That's why Rambler is named what she is. Male calves don't get honored with car names--they get whatever names Tom feels inspired to give them at the time.

Moo.

Tom Elliot, also known as The Tarpsh or The Weedster, is my youngest brother.

Tom and his wife Sally run the Elliot family farm. Rambler isn't the only cow who has been a dancing partner for Tom. The day we made this video of Rambler dancing, he also tried to get a steer named Joe to dance for us too, but Joe was not in the mood to cooperate.

Tom is 7 years older than me. Out of all my three brothers, he was the one who played with me the most (the other two boys were both older than him, and not quite sure what to do with a little sister). He used to call me his favorite sister (I was his only sister), so I started calling him my favorite brother. Eventually, I figured out that my other two brothers probably didn't appreciate that, so I quit calling him that. (But hey, when you're 5 years old, who are you going to choose as your favorite brother? The one who plays with you and shares his precious can of shrimp from the store with you, or the one who bellows, "Julie! Quit that yapping!")

Tom used to have a steer named Joe that was even bigger than Rambler and was apparently a fine dance partner. However, the day we visited Tom with our video camera, Joe was definitely not in the mood to dance. We did get some hilarious video of Tom trying coax Joe into dancing--"C'mon Joe! You can do it! Dance with me!"

Tom's cows are very tame. They're not just a source of livelihood for him, they're pets. Every one has a name. From the time they're calves, he pets them, feeds them by hand, plays with them, and scratches them behind the ears. And some calves are lucky enough to be singled out for learning how to dance. The day I was standing at the fence watching Tom try to get Joe to dance with him, another steer came up to me, took my hand inside his mouth, and started sucking on it. When Tom sorts cattle to move some to different fields, he has trouble separating out the ones he wants to move because they're not at all afraid of him. Instead of moving away from him as he tries to herd them, they come up closer to him and playfully head-butt him.

Tom has promised me that one of these times when I visit Iowa, he'll introduce me to cow surfing. The last time I was there, the weather was too dry, so we didn't get to see any cow surfing action.

If you don't see a photo of cows appear at the top of this page, it's possible an error may have occurred while your computer was attempting to retrieve it from the Internet. Look for the partial file on your disk and see if it arrived in its entirety. Here's how (assuming you're using either Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT):

• Click on "Start" in the lower left corner of your screen.
• Choose "Find" from the menu that pops up.
• On the window that appears, type "*.avi" in the "Named" window and click on the "Find Now" button off to the right.
• If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer as your browser, look for a file named "cows.avi" in the list of files found, and examine the file size. It should say 3946k or 3947k. If your file size is less than 3946k or 3947k, that means your computer didn't receive the entire file, and that's why you can't see the video. Go back to Internet Explorer and click on the "Refresh" icon at the top of your Netscape screen to have it try again at retrieving the video.
• If you're using Netscape Navigator as your browser, look at the "In Folder" column for a path that says "C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\yourname\Cache". Then look to the left of it in the first column for a file whose file name ends in ".avi". Then look to the right of the path name for the file size. It should say 3946k or 3947k. If your file size is less than 3946k or 3947k, that means your computer didn't receive the entire file, and that's why you can't see the video. Go back to Netscape and click on the "Reload" icon at the top of your Netscape screen to have it try again at retrieving the video.
• If you follow the above steps and the "avi" file is always less than 3946k in size even after you reload or refresh, please send me e-mail letting me know that I should check on whether the file on my server has become corrupted.

I've found that the above steps usually resolve problems that most people encounter when trying to view the video.

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