ASCEND: Women, Wilderness, and the Will to Provide: Homesteading & Gator Wrangling (Ep 763)

Discover how modern women are reclaiming ancestral skills—from raising and processing their own meat to handling unexpected encounters with Florida gators.

Host Bethany Beathard sits down with Tiffany Sanders, homesteader, hunter, nurse, and nuisance‑gator responder, to explore what self‑sufficiency really looks like in today’s world. Tiffiny shares firsthand stories from the field, including the wildest gator call she and her husband ever responded to, how her children got involved, and what it’s like navigating communities that protect nuisance wildlife.

The conversation shifts into the heart of Tiffiny’s work: empowering women to take ownership of their food sources. From home butchering and dispatching animals humanely to growing nutrient‑dense produce, she teaches women that you don’t have to be “born” into homesteading to thrive in it. Her background as a nurse opened her eyes to the connection between diet and health—and sparked her drive to grow and raise food intentionally.

Together, Bethany and Tiffany dig into the historical roots of women feeding their families, the rise in self‑sufficiency post‑COVID, and why today’s homesteaders are simply rediscovering what women have always done.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The wild reality of nuisance‑gator calls—and how Tiffiny ended up in the middle of one neighborhood’s “gator protection squad”
• Why nursing school led Tiffiny to grow, raise, and process her own food
• How women historically provided for their families through gardening, preserving, and animal harvesting
• Why more women are learning dispatching and butchering skills today
• The importance of humane, low‑stress animal processing on small homesteads
• How COVID reshaped food security and sparked a self‑sufficiency movement
• Garden staples Tiffiny never goes without—especially her obsession with red potatoes
• Why perfection isn’t the goal—intentionality is

Follow along with Bethany for more homesteading conversations, practical skills, and stories from women who live close to their roots.

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Bethany: Welcome back to the ASCEND podcast. I'm your host today, Bethany Beathard. And today, we're gonna be talking about something that I love just rooted in the outdoors lifestyle, self sufficiency and I have a special guest today, one of my good friends, Tiffany Sanders and she is an amazing woman. Tiffany, will you please introduce yourself and kinda tell us a little bit about how you got started in the outdoors and, what you do, and then we'll get into some really good topics later.

Tiffany: So I am a wife of almost thirty years. Gosh, we're up around, I think we're at 26. I should have made sure before I said that, but that'll be funny. We have four grandchildren, six grandchildren, and basically, I got started as what they call an adult onset hunter. Now at this point, it's been almost thirty years ago because my husband introduced me into hunting and outdoors.

I was always an outdoorsy girl, and I liked to fish, and I grew up on a horse farm. But as far as the actual hunting side of it, my husband and his family definitely introduced me for the first time. So as, you know, I married him and saw his family involved in it, and as I was raising children and the children kind of became less dependent on me and I had a little more time to slip out into the outdoors, I just fell in love with it and just ran with it.

Bethany: Yeah. And I know our viewers are gonna be shocked because they're gonna be like, did she say grandma? And yes, like, you look amazing.

Tiffany: Lola Lola actually. Lola.

Bethany: Lola. Yes. I love that. I know. I'm like, man, I need like a catchy name.

Like, I'm already thinking about I have kids too. And I'm like Yeah. Once the grandkids start coming, I need a cool name too. Exactly. Maybe the viewers can help out with that.

What I don't know, like honey. I don't know what all the names that they say.

Tiffany: Oh, yeah. There's lots of them nowadays.

Bethany: There's so many. Yep. So it's really interesting because you talk about being an onset, like an adult onset hunter, but yet now you're this amazing mentor, like you do so many mentored projects And so it's really encouraging probably for someone that's beginning out, you know, thinking like, I don't really know everything and like, it's like a skip and a jump and now you're the one that's like teaching it. You do some So firearm safety. I've seen you do like some shotgun clinics.

How are you

Tiffany: Yeah.

Bethany: Like, what do you see? You see a lot of women coming? Are they beginners? Is it, you know, just women looking for community?

Tiffany: Yes. So I signed up and went through the training to become a volunteer hunter safety instructor. And through that position, I've had lots of opportunities to do a shotgun courses with some of The US students and different women's clubs and groups that have come through. So it's interesting when I I've I've been a volunteer safety hunter instruct volunteer hunter safety instructor. Let me get that straight.

Officially since 2023. And the change in the demographics of the students that I have witnessed just in a couple of short years is really encouraging. When I first started that first year, I would only see a woman come in if she was bringing her a child and she was just sitting in or something like that. And actually just a couple of weekends ago, I did a hunter safety course, and I think we had seven or eight women out of 30. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but that is huge compared to only seeing a woman every once in a while if they were sitting in with someone.

So, yeah, we are seeing a trend up as far as women with me doing hunter safety courses. Almost all of them are beginners because it's their very first hunting license that they're trying to get. Some of them will take the class because it also doubles as the education for concealed carry, but that's becoming less and less. More of them are beginners in the outdoors now. So and more women.

Yeah. Way more women. It's great.

Bethany: I can't even say that from a participant standpoint. You know, when I first, like years ago, six years ago, standing at like the elk draw for OnPost in Oklahoma, there was only a few women to versus like this last time that we were doing it, there was like a ton of women in the parking lot and, know, upwards of 20 or 30 which, you know, was really surprising and I really love to see and I even really like to see some of the retirees bringing their wives and, know, they were definitely upper age compared to some of the other ones. Was like, man, they're still doing it, you know. So that's exciting to see. Something really fun that you do is Gator nuisance trapping in Florida and I really how did that even happen?

Like, how'd you even start doing that?

Tiffany: It's really funny. So I'll tell you, you know, we we had to take a little bit of a break from it the last year or so because our business has just been rocking and rolling. But really obtaining or getting a spot as a nuisance trapper, as a Gator Trapper in Florida is kind of like a a Supreme Court seat. Like, you know, you get it and then you just die with it. Like, it's not very often that you get it.

So my husband and I were friends with one of the trappers, and it just so happened that he and his backup guy both were having medical procedures and they needed more backup. So we kind of stepped in at just the right time. So my husband and I both stepped in and became nuisance trapper so that we could help them during that time when they were going through some medical procedures and then recovering. So it was really just being in the right place at the right time. But it's a really, really interesting experience because while I've hunted alligators with a quota, you know, with the in the past, it's a whole different thing because your purpose is to, if at all possible, obviously, take the alligator alive.

And you are dealing with alligators that more than not because we live in Florida and the movement to Florida by, you know, up from other states is just through the roof. You have the development is just really encroaching on these wild spaces. And so it's interesting that we call the alligator the nuisance when really it's the development encroaching into their areas, and then they're surrounded, and then they're the nuisance because someone is afraid of them. I will say that more times than not, it's the really highly populated kind of city areas where the nuisance alligators are reported, not so much out in the rural areas. But so kinda how it goes down is someone almost always what happens is there's a cute little alligator living in a retention pond, usually a little baby.

Everyone starts feeding it. It's so cute until it gets big enough to start looking at dogs and toddlers, and now it's a nuisance. And so they'll put a call in through FWC. They'll develop a ticket, they'll send it to the trappers that are available in that area. And then we go out and we try to trap them.

We try to catch them with, like, a a a hook and a line and, you know, try to secure them and move them to another spot. If they show, and this is the sad part for me that gets frustrating, if the alligator shows signs that they have now lost all fear of humans, then it's almost impossible to rehab that alligator because basically they'll keep moving toward human populations because now they've identified them as a food source and they have no fear. So we always are really, really thankful when we move in on a gator and they still act afraid of us because then we know we can just relocate them. There's some designated water sources that there are no swimmers really and things like that, and we can just move them. It's really sad when we find one that's lost all fear and just comes at you like your Subway sandwich and you're like, okay, we can't rehab this one.

So

Bethany: So a couple things, like, what is the biggest gator that you guys have had to get, you know, trap?

Tiffany: Okay. So this one was an assist. I did not get to do this one by myself, but the biggest one was just shy of 11. I mean and maybe right at eleven. But Wow.

That one in particular 11 foot. Yeah. 11 foot. And so the thing about them is so about the all about the nuisance trapping when you have gators of that size, you're trying to wear them out. And so it's not so much about catching them as quick as possible.

You're more kind of ebbing and flowing with them until you get them really tired. And then when you see that they're exhausted, you try to get them to land and get them secured as quick as possible because you know when that second wind comes, you are no match for them. So Yeah. My experience with that really large one was, you know, you get them up there. The first thing you're trying to do is get their mouth taped shut.

And then you want to restrain their restrain their front legs, especially, but also their back legs so they don't injure themselves as you're trying to transport them. So the way you do that is you throw something over their eyes and you climb in their back and you try to get

Bethany: their It's like wrestling. It's like gator wrestling.

Tiffany: Yes. Yes. And so this particular gator, we had his mouth taped shut and threw a a towel across his eyes, so he was a little bit more subdued. And I, with all of my weight, slink down on this Gator's back. And when I when I sat on his back, he took this deep breath in, which completely lifted me off the ground and then just kinda let out this deep growl.

And I thought to myself, I am not even remotely in control right now. This is a dinosaur. Thankfully, was so checkered out.

Bethany: The viewers don't even know, but you're, like, tiny. You're, like, I'm five one and half, and you're shorter than me. So I'm five Yeah.

Tiffany: I'm five foot half an inch. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. It

Bethany: was just

Tiffany: thankfully, he was so exhausted. We were able to move him into the trailer before he regained that second wind, but that was definitely an otherworldly experience. You know?

Bethany: I'm guessing there's, like, there's just no training that prepares. It's just like boots on the ground.

Tiffany: Well, you assist for several times watching and learning technique before you're allowed yes. Absolutely. Yeah. You have your mentor, whoever you're training under, has to check the boxes and deem that you're safe, and you pick up certain parts of it. So maybe at first, you're just holding the end of the fishing rod while they go out and secure.

You know, you kinda move a little closer to the alligator as you check off on your training points but, yeah, it's definitely something.

Bethany: That's interesting.

Tiffany: And that one was actually large enough that he got to go to Gatorland so that was exciting so.

Bethany: Oh, and like St. Augustine or no, that's down. You're talking about Gator?

Tiffany: Yeah. It's further down.

Bethany: It's further Okay. So we've been to the alligator farm in Florida Right. When we lived there and now we're in Georgia and so Gators are we now we have and I got a waterfowl dog. So I'm like, I'm scared now because, you know, come from Oklahoma, there's where I'm from in Oklahoma, there is gators in Oklahoma. There's not somewhere I am.

So I imagine it's like a family affair. So like you and your husband kind of tag team the whole nest and skater thing.

Tiffany: Yeah. We've actually been able to bring a couple of our kids along as well and that was fun. You know, they're grown now. We wouldn't bring like the small children, but the grown ones, they've been been able to assist in a couple of them, so that was fun too. I was gonna tell you the most interesting one was actually one that was living in a kind of like a drainage ditch in the middle of a not so great neighborhood.

And the neighborhood, residents were actually trying to protect the gator and keep us from taking him, and it was a little sketchy. Like, it was kind of like a carrier protection type area. So it was interesting.

Bethany: Oh my goodness.

Tiffany: Yeah.

Bethany: When we lived in Florida, we had a little gator and our and we had a pond in our HOA and it was actually our backyard and we would see him every once in a while, but I know a lot of people reported him. I never seen people catch him, but we stopped seeing him. I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about homesteading because I feel like that's like, a huge part of who you are. Did you grow up with a self sufficient lifestyle or was that also a learned process?

Tiffany: Well, yes and no. I grew up not rich. And so I watched my family. I watched my parents really stretch things and make do and make things work that most families probably could not. As far as the farming and gardening side of it, I wasn't exposed to much of that as a child, and I actually was not a super great cook.

I wasn't a great cook at all when I married my husband. You'll have to tell him he'll have to tell you that story later. But I was so determined to learn it. And what really opened my eyes was when I went to nursing school and when I realized how important and how connected diet was to your overall health and to your mental health, and that's when I really started paying attention to what was in food. And it's kind of like when you start digging in that rabbit hole, you can't find a suitable you can't find anything good to eat.

And that brought me to the conclusion that I needed to have figure out how to grow it and raise it myself. And that's really nursing school is what really sent me sharpest into that journey on becoming more self sufficient and growing and raising my own food. So

Bethany: Yeah. And you, you guys have your own piece of property, but you speak a lot at like the homesteading conventions your I've seen you talk about, what are like, what do you talk about there? Like what is your like topic of choice, I guess that you're sharing?

Tiffany: So what I usually end up focusing on is, home processing because anyone who has hunted or anyone who has raised their own animals for meat has noticed, especially since COVID that the processors are really backed up, and that has become quite a problem. So that's when I really took it into my own hands to process my own animals that I hunt and I raise. And it's something that a lot of women think that they can't do, especially if they love animals. And to me, that's exactly why I do it because I control all aspects of it and that animal is never stressed. And I make sure it's done well.

I make sure it's done hygienically. I make sure that the meat's not wasted. And so that tends to be my focus is, what would be the word, butchering, but also the process of dispatching. That's the word. So dispatching and processing animals yourself tends to be what I speak on the most.

Bethany: Yeah. I think there's definitely a big pool. I see women wanting to know how to just preserve their own food as well, like with freezing, canning, you know, paper wrapping. I that's a big part of my own content that I've seen people gravitate towards and wanted to learn and ask questions, kinda interact with. And it's really amazing to see because I think the thought is you don't have to be it's not perfection, but it's like intentional.

Like just be intentional about doing it well, doing it right, doing it clean. And there's really, I feel like a huge shift definitely like you said since COVID for people wanting to be more self sufficient. But I think this sounds like us as women, people will talk about, oh, like maybe like this is a new type of idea. But then you think back just like, you know, maybe even sixty, a hundred years ago, women were having their own gardens. They were, you know, harvesting their own chickens.

They were trapping nuisance rabbits in their gardens, you know, like there was a lot of things that they were already doing and and we even go back to further than that when we're talking about, you know, civil war, revolutionary time whenever the husband had to go off to fight. Yes. Who was fistfinging Absolutely. The moms were doing it, you know. Yeah.

And so, it might be a new thought now, but women have been doing this for a long time.

Tiffany: Yeah. And that's the thing. The fact that it can be considered that this is a new thing for women, to me, is proof of how quickly we can get away from our roots in just a very short period of time. Because like you said, I mean, the woman I mean, the woman was the warrior of the home, and she was the I mean, you look at you take nods from nature. You look at the way nature handles procuring food and feeding.

I mean, you see the female out there hunting, and it's a very natural thing because we have that internal desire to feed our family nutritious food. It makes us a little more passionate about the whole process. And it is very empowering to know that you control so many aspects of the process so that you can ensure that whatever you're putting on the table for your family is the best there is that you can offer, you know, the best that you can offer them. So that's definitely empowering

Bethany: for a woman. Yeah. And you, I mean, we go back, you know, pioneer times. Yes. You know, the father male figure was the ones that did a lot of the mass farming, but all houses had a kitchen garden and that was what you were eating out of.

That's what you were preserving for fall. The moms were drying the stuff in the attics. And it really interesting actually, I seen a study where the National Geographic has been doing like archeology studies, digging up graves and kind of seeing it. And they actually have been finding women buried with big game hunting kits where they were only previously seen that with men. So now it's like estimated that they're thinking like 30 to 40% of big game hunters in like ancient times were also women.

Absolutely. And so it's kind of rewriting that narrative. And like you said, it's just like how quickly we can get away from that, you know. It's just really interesting to see to see that happen. What are what are your staples in your garden that you have to have?

Tiffany: Well, I'm a potato girl. So in the wintertime, I the majority of my garden is potatoes, and reds are our favorite. I grow so many potatoes. I'm a root I'm like a root veggie girl. So all the onions, all the garlic, every meal that I cook starts with some garlic, some onions, and either some butter or some lard.

Like, that's every meal. So I grow tons of onions, tons of garlic, tons of potatoes. That's, like, my staple. As much as I can, I love sweet potatoes too? I love to grow those because they keep really well.

I love to grow, like, seminal pumpkins because they keep a really long time. The longest I've kept one in the pantry, I think it was, almost sixteen months before I used it, which makes sense because the indigenous people here in Florida, they grew that because of that reason, because they stored so well. And, you know, it makes you know, you you hear about, like, sweet potato pie. Seminole pumpkin pie is something. It is tasty.

So it kinda is on that along that same lines as far as the way the flavor. So I'm definitely a root veggie girl. I'm definitely like Seminole pumpkin. And what's my other my other favorite one? It's Georgia candy roaster.

I love that one. That's kind of in the Seminole pumpkin family as well. But, you know, I love things that keep longer and that you can just grow a whole bunch of them, and they're pretty easy to grow as far as root stuff. And I love some roasted root veggies, carrots, things like that. I love fennel.

It just when you when you when you oven roast it, it caramelizes. And when you put it in with the other roasted vegetables, it's just but yeah. So that's usually it's the root stuff for me is what I focus on the most. And then all the different herbs and things like that. Beans, obviously, because beans are just so prolific.

That's an easy one. And you hardly have to think about them. They just almost grow themselves. So Yeah. And then obviously tomatoes that I Yeah.

Growing season's long. Isn't it? It is. Oh, yeah. So we basically we have two springs.

So we have our real spring like everybody else does. But then right now is like our second spring. So we can grow all the spring stuff again, the tomatoes, the corn, all that stuff. And then we can grow all the leafy greens and all the root vegetables all the way through winter pretty much with no protection. So, you know, we can just grow all the way through winter with all of our broccolis and cauliflowers and spinaches and lettuces and all those type of things.

Bethany: That's awesome. So you do a lot of well, with roots, you just do a lot of drying for the preserving. What are you doing with the others? So you like freezing, canning?

Tiffany: Freeze, can. I've been experimenting this year with, freeze drying. I got a freeze drying machine, so I'm super excited about that, you know, mainly because of yeah. It the way that it retains the nutrient density, you know, because unfortunately, when you pressure can things and when you freeze them, it's great and you're preserving them, and I love doing that. Even dehydrating things, you actually lose a lot of the nutritional content when you do that.

But when you freeze dry them, you retain and and don't quote me on this, but it's something like 78 or 80% of the nutritional value is retained, and it's shelf stable for up to thirty years. So I've been experimenting with that. There's definitely

Bethany: Have you done meat yet?

Tiffany: I have not because I'm afraid to. Been, you know, because I yeah. You know, I mean, you know, I'm still fine with pressure canning that and and all that, but I keep seeing these horror stories about how the fat can like absorb into the machine and destroy it and I'm just I haven't been brave enough to try that yet, but I'm gonna get a little more well versed in it first.

Bethany: So That's exciting. I love freeze dried snacks. I that's definitely on my on my homesteading list of needs Yes. Wants to have, I guess. So this would be a good time to take a break here from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

Alright. We're back and I wanna switch gears a little bit, kinda go back to talking about, mentorship because you play such a big role and I wanna give some advice to some beginners out there. You know, kinda talking all over The United States to all of my guests, but, know, down in Florida, if there was somebody new, I guess, what is your biggest, beginner tips to getting started, getting acclimated to that that area?

Tiffany: Okay. Well, if you are a woman or a child, we have an organization called Gator Gobblers here in Florida that is just amazing at mentoring, and they even have hunt weekends where they take everybody on, like, a two day hunt. They feed them all the meals. And when I tell you they feed them, they feed them, like, good Southern hospitality meals. And their harvest rates, I know with their deer list last year, I think it was something like 87% harvest rate.

So it's a really good opportunity. And so there are so many organizations around. I know for women, we have Artemis, we have you know, American Daughters of Conservation. We have all these different organizations that are really constantly putting on some kind of hunt. We have ladies' gator hunts going on, duck hunts, just you know?

But reaching out to in Florida, especially, if you reach out to FWC, a lot of times that's the Florida Wildlife Conservation, the the you know, kind of like the governing organization here in Florida. But they have connections to a lot of these organizations that are putting on these first time hunter events and these ladies' hunts and these children's hunts. So that's a great way to get started is just to go, because I think a lot of people learn more by being immersed and experiencing it than just by reading up or learning about it. So that's that's a pointer. And then the other ones, go to the range.

Like, even if you don't have a firearm yet, a lot of these these ranges here, I don't know how other places are, but they have ones that you can check out, and they'll come and work with you and work through safety and and just get familiar with it. Do what you can until you can afford a firearm. And then, like I said, plug into one of these hunts. A lot of times, they'll have a firearm that you can loan for the hunt or whatever. But there are so many organizations available now that there definitely wasn't when I started hunting.

And so you can plug into any one of these, and they will just take you by the hand and walk you all the way through harvest. And I know with Gator Gobblers, they walk you right through breaking it down, and you get to take the meat at home with you. So it's just there are great things, great organizations all over the place.

Bethany: Yeah. I love to see that because like you said, that wasn't as popular whenever I started and got into, you know, really trying to find communities and stuff. It was really limited and some of it was only online, like it wasn't in person. But once that breakthrough happened in person, it was a total game changer and, you know, I met some of my best friends and I was able actually to just take off and start doing outdoor things.

Tiffany: Yeah.

Bethany: Yeah. I love that. So what is your so you guys do deer, you waterfowl hunt as well. And you and your husband did like a big trip, didn't you? Like, you guys went up north.

Tiffany: We went out west actually. Went to Arizona.

Bethany: Yeah. Yes.

Tiffany: Yeah. We

Bethany: went out there to try

Tiffany: to hunt some species of ducks that we don't have here in Florida. So that was interesting.

Bethany: I mean, you're just totally out of your element, but at the same time, the adventure is so exciting. So fun fact, Tiffany recorded my Osceola

Tiffany: I did.

Bethany: That was a blast. That was like my first time hunting turkeys in Florida, even I live there and I'm like, never did that when I lived there, but that was super exciting and that was I was actually talking about that on the last turkey hunt whenever the owls were like going off in the morning and Shane was calling and they just kept going off.

Tiffany: I'm getting chills right now, remember?

Bethany: Actually, here he is. That's right here.

Tiffany: Yeah. There

Bethany: he is. Yeah. That was great.

Tiffany: That was such a beautiful hunt. I was just I remember when he rounded that corner and I saw him first and I was like, oh my goodness. Like, it was great.

Bethany: That was such a awesome And, like, all the Jakes, I was like, oh, they're gonna bust this. They're gonna bust this was, like, nine Jakes. And they were, like, ten, fifteen yards from us. And I know one of them seen. Yes.

I was like, oh no. Oh no.

Tiffany: Thankfully thankfully you just moved fast enough.

Bethany: It worked It was amazing. Loved that hunt. It was so it's one of my favorite hunts to go, like, go back and think about. I think turkey hunting has always been one of those hunts that, you know, go back and I think about and I'm like, man, like you really have to work for these animals or they're not that smart, but they also know how to outwit us very easily.

Tiffany: Yes. Well, you know, fun fact for me, that's actually the first animal I ever harvested. So the very first hunt that I went on was a turkey hunt. I talk about it all the time, but the first time a gobbler drummed within hearing distance, and I could feel the the reverberations of that drumming in my chest. Like, it's something you can't explain to somebody.

But I'll never that was my first time, and that's what hooked me. I mean, it was just it was beautiful with the sun. He just came through the mist in the morning. I mean, it was just everything about it was just beautiful, and I I love turkey hunting.

Bethany: Yeah. No. Me too. And you you actually just got drawn because they changed it. Didn't they change or the public lands are draws in Florida.

Is that how that it works now?

Tiffany: No. It's still some. So what it is is certain prime hunting ground that, they're trying to give a fair chance by not overpopulating, those one will be quota draws. But most of your public lands are still, you know, open just open to everyone. So

Bethany: Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then you guys do a lot of hog hunting too

Tiffany: down there. Yeah.

Bethany: Obviously, it's like overrun and it's that's a

Tiffany: nuisance They're everywhere. Thing Yeah. Yeah. They're everywhere. Yeah.

I don't love to eat them unless they're small and they're female because they you know, everybody has a thing, but they can get a little stinky. But they are fun to hunt because they their noses are something.

Bethany: Yes. We, did a lot of that when we lived here the first time. And so now that we're back in Georgia, I'm like, oh, Hogs are definitely Yeah. Going to be something that we get back into. Kind of circling back to community, I feel like that's something that's hard for women to find and now you have your kids, so you kind of have like your own little community because I see you post your sons and stuff whenever they harvest.

How's that transitioning to being kind of on the other end and now you see your kids harvesting and your grandkids are getting a little bit older? Yeah. Yeah. Like, how's that in your family?

Tiffany: The funnest part of that is it's so normal for women to be a part of hunting to them, which is not how my husband grew up. To them, it's completely normal. Of course, your wife and your girlfriend hunts with you. Of course, that is just part of it. You know, every one of the I mean, that's just normal life.

And my granddaughter, she'll turn seven this year, like, she has been she's been carrying around a Cabela's magazine with the stuff that she wants for hunting season. And, like, she is so excited about being able to go and hunt her own deer. You know, she actually was able to harvest a buck in bow season this year, and she was able to go with us to find it because he he ran a little further than I wanted to even though we had a really great shot on him, but that happens sometimes. The the arrow was just plugging the hole just right. So until he caught it on a branch and kinda got things going, but we had to look a little bit.

But she went through that whole process, and it's just really cool to me that that is gonna be she won't even bat an eye about whether or not women belong in the outdoors or not. It should it we totally do.

Bethany: I love that. That kinda brings you back to the nineties whenever you had the catalogs and you circled everything that you wanted for Christmas. You know?

Tiffany: That's what she's doing.

Bethany: She's just

Tiffany: carrying it around.

Bethany: I love that. I love that. And, you know, it goes back to show that there actually is kids sections. There's women's sections now in those catalogs where that wasn't something that was in the past. It was, So that's really exciting to see.

Yeah. And they're growing up with them.

Tiffany: I was gonna say, honestly, until like eight years ago, I think I was wearing like boys youth size stuff because they had nothing for women. It's So

Bethany: great that there's so

Tiffany: much available. Yeah.

Bethany: Yeah. I love that. And I mean, and it just keeps coming out. I'm like, man, I need that new piece of gear. I love that.

You know? Like, I'm so excited to seize the innovation and definitely the I think the industry as far as like on the gear side, we're seeing women are getting the quality of gear. It's not just in women's size, but like the quality of the gear is the same as what the men have had for a while, you know. We're even getting some of those higher end products and so I I I love to see that. And like you said, like our daughters, our granddaughters are gonna grow up with something that's so normalized to see, which is really it's really exciting.

I think kids are craving at this these days. You know, I know your kids are kinda grew up the same barefoot childhood, you know, getting the kids outside, but not everybody has that, you know. Have you guys always lived out in the country homesteading or were you guys city dwellers at some point?

Tiffany: No. Pretty much since I married my husband, we've been out. He says that, you know, I can thank him for it. I don't know. I think it was in there anyways, and I I probably would have taken us out.

But, yeah, we pretty much we did try to live in a neighborhood. I think it lasted a year, but we got in trouble for burning in the yard. We got in trouble for the kids shooting squirrels with the 22 like, were in trouble all the time. So we're like, you know what? It was a temporary phase.

We're like, this is not working for sure. We've So pretty much always been out. My children were way too feral to, to be too much in the public eye. So

Bethany: Yes. I know. I feel like that's where we're at right now. Just like being a military family, it's like Yeah. Forced urban homesteading, you know, and Yeah.

Thankfully, you know, the hunting areas are closed and we're able to do that, but it is so hard. I feel like to give kids those experiences. So whenever you do talk about these organizations taking kids out, it's really a really great opportunity because not everybody can just run outside

Tiffany: and

Bethany: go, you know, hunt something. What is your what do you see whenever I know that you've you've talked to me about this before, kinda going back to the firearm side of it, women being scared to hunt with or shoot shotguns. And I've seen you do some really good clinics on this. Yeah. Are you still seeing, like, I don't know.

I feel like shotguns are scary to people.

Tiffany: They are. They're I think shotguns are scary to everyone, whether you're a woman or a man. 10 people just tend to be afraid of shotguns. The so that's where instructing comes in. And, you know, honestly, if you are handling the firearm correctly, there's a very reduced chance that you're gonna experience any discomfort unless you're just shooting several times in a row.

So I think that's where that instruction is so important to for people to have that. People the infamous people hand you know, they see people in the video, and everybody's videoing them, and they just hand them a shotgun and tell them to shoot it, and they're holding it six inches away from their chest, and it knocks them down. And everybody's seen those videos. Right? But nobody talks about how if you hold a a firearm correctly, that your body absorbs that shock, and you don't get that kick like that.

And, you know, if you brace yourself correctly and all those things, that's where that technique is so important to reduce, to increase your control over the firearm and reduce your discomfort.

Bethany: Yeah. And they probably see you do it and they're like, well, she's like tiny and capable and doing all this and she's amazing.

Tiffany: You just gotta dig that. You gotta dig those feet in and get I tell them, get your athletic stance on and just, you got this. But yeah, it's fun to teach women because they are just like everybody, but especially women because they have seen so many videos and heard of, you know, boyfriends that hand their girlfriends a shotgun and laugh at them and, you know, all that. So there is definitely kind of like that stigma, especially with shotguns.

Bethany: Yeah. I went to a, it was a shotgun clinic, but it was more like a women's range day where we had, we were shooting a trap and we hit the ski range and it was really interesting because there was like lines of women like, you know, beginner, intermediate, advanced and a lot of women that had even been hunting and shooting for a while were still kind of gravitating towards the beginner, intermediate, like scared to kind of move on. And it was just really interesting because like after everybody started warming up and we had shot a while, it really was just like getting comfortable and they actually switched the instructor and it was a woman on the Advance and then people kind of started gravitating. So it was really interesting to see from like a social perspective kind of how the women gravitated and it really just goes back to like, just, women want buy women things and and and instruction. And so

Tiffany: Well, with the hunter safety courses that I do, whenever oh, I it's I love this part when I'm sitting in there helping sign in and the woman rounds that corner and she sees my face. You can just see, like, her shoulders just relax. Like, oh, okay. Like, I'm okay now. I've I've got I've got an ally.

There's a woman here. So it's just great to be that face for them to come around that corner and say, okay, I'm in good hands. So I mean, that's

Bethany: Yeah. And it's I bet the yeah. I bet the statistic's very low for, like, female firearms instructor even more on the hunting side versus, like, you know, personal protection. Like, I bet there's even less hunting style, you know, and structures. So, yeah, I think it's just like a breath of fresh air to see, you know, you're a woman that has many things on her plate and do many, many things.

So would you mind sharing a little bit about where people can find you and maybe something that you have coming up, where people maybe locally can get involved?

Tiffany: Yeah. Well, you know, we do, you know, for FWC for the state of Florida, we always have various hunter safety courses going on. So anybody that's looking to get their hunter safety course completed so they can get their hunting license for the first time if you live in Florida, I don't mind you reaching out to me. And because sometimes if you're on the inside, you can see some courses and things that the public may not be able to see, and you can just have a little more assistance walking through that process. Because it can be kinda scary navigating the website.

It can be kinda confusing. So I definitely can help with that process. Or if you know, are trying to figure out what kind of organizations are close by, I don't mind getting you connected because I I have connections in just about all of these organizations. So, you know, from that aspect, you know, I I really take my role as a mentor. Sometimes all you need is just somebody getting you connected, you know, because even though you live in Florida, Florida's a long state.

Like, you might live in South Florida and you're hours from me. I I have friends and kinda and contacts down there too. And at this point, we're developing contacts across the nation. I spent some time as an Artemis ambassador, so I have contacts in most of the states across the nation. So basically, just, you know, don't be afraid to reach out to Bethany or reach out to me or whoever's closest to you.

There are women out there that, you know, whether a woman, whether you're a child, whether you're a man, I've had so I've walked so many men through getting their hunter safety course done and getting them connected somewhere Because sometimes it's intimidating to them to ask men, and sometimes it's easier for them to ask a woman. So, you know, plenty of men reached out too. But, yeah, basically, if you if you know, you can put my I'm on social media as Lolo of the South, and I also have my farm on there as Sanders Heritage Farms. Either one of those, you can reach out to me and ask questions and ask for contacts, and I'd be more than happy to help walk you through that.

Bethany: Well, Tiffany, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your sharing your experiences, your heart, your passion for mentorship. And until next time, we will talk to you later.

VO: Thank you for listening to the ASCEND podcast. New every week, the conservation driven podcast one week and our adventure video series the next. Watch the ASCEND adventure episodes on the Ducks Unlimited YouTube channel, and be sure to like, share, and subscribe. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, follow your outdoor story wherever it leads you.

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