File this in the “Do as I say, not as I do” category. When I was farming full time, I probably managed stress poorly much of the time. Here’s an example. One day, Dad and I purchased a few cow-calf pairs from another farmer who had too many cows and not enough pasture. We picked up the pairs with our trailer, and instead of dropping them off at home to get acclimated to new surroundings, we dropped them off directly in the pasture with our other cows.

COWS, CALVES, STRESS: If calves break through a fence or machinery breaks down, stress can pile up on the farm. It takes patience and an ability to break things up into manageable pieces to deal with stressful situations.

This pasture is broken up with two different branches of West Bow Creek. These creek tributaries have steep sides. Although the streambed is rather narrow, it is very deep — and almost impossible for cattle to cross except in a couple of shallow spots.

We dropped the newly purchased cows off in the pasture. They ran to the creek, jumped it and ran up the other side where our cows were grazing. They never looked back. The calves stood on the opposite side of the creek, bawling for their mamas.

We thought that the cows would eventually come back for their calves. We drove home only to find one calf running out of the cornfield, looking for his mother, who was still grazing happily back in the pasture. The calf was wild and could not be chased in the right direction.

I was extremely frustrated by the situation, and I expressed this distress verbally in front of my dad. He let me vent for a time, then calmly told me, “Cool your jets, son.”

He said that the cow would eventually realize that her calf wasn’t around and she would start calling for it. He predicted that the calf would hear its mother and return to the pasture. I doubted his prediction. Then Dad said something I haven’t forgotten.

“When things pile up on you — and on the farm they tend to do that — you can’t take the whole of your problems and solve them all at once,” Dad said. “You have to take a deep breath and break things up into manageable tasks. Take your time and think of solutions, and things will work out more often than not.”

These were wise words from a wise man. I’ve used the same words with my own children many times.

If you live and work on a farm or ranch this time of year, you are busy. You are so busy some days you probably don’t know which way is up. Often, when we are busiest on the farm, we are just putting out fires, not really getting ahead of the workload.

There are really only two ways to handle stress. You can meet it head-on and learn to manage it upfront, or you can permanently move to an island resort and plant yourself on a beach of sand.

Assuming a beach resort is out of the question, meeting and beating stress is one of the most important things we can do. You can’t micromanage your farm or your family so bad things never happen. Bad things will happen. If you can break things up, tackle them one at a time or delegate responsibility to others on your team, you are more likely to fix problems and alleviate stress.

By the way, the calf did find its way back into the pasture, so Dad was right all along.