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Episode-1140- Women of Prepping Series Episode Four

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Former Macy's Addict, now "Queen of Tires, Dirt and Pallets!"

Former Macy’s Addict, now “Queen of Tires, Dirt and Pallets!”

After spending 16 years in the real estate business Tabitha Bettencourt changed course to become a 911 dispatcher in the 5th largest city in California.

After 9 working in law enforcement during which she met her husband and got married she began watching the economy slide and civilization decline.  Along the way Tabitha and her husband opted to restart their lives on 2 acres of bare land on a hill on the Oregon Coast.  The move was a major downsize in economy but in many ways a major upsize in living.

Tabitha now is basically retired from any sort job and instead stays home  in her own words “to build and dig and create while Hubby earns the money and supports me in the Lowe’s habit I have become accustom too”.

Tabitha joins us to discuss prepping from a woman’s point of view as the forth member of our female forum.

Today we discuss that and many of her projects and adventures such as…

Resources for Today’s Show…

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

Comments

Episode-1140- Women of Prepping Series Episode Four — 37 Comments

  1. I respect a gal who can run a skid loader, and do well with it! After looking at Tabitha’s rain catch system, and some of her other projects, I’m looking forward to this interview.

    • I loved driving that skid loader a little too much.. My dad offered to rent it for me for another day just so I could drive it around… but man it can make a muddy mess!!!

  3. Oh…you have made me break a commandment because I am soooooo coveting my neighbor’s goods right now. My ins agent changed providers, dropping my old one and switching me to AAA. So here comes Mr. Ins Dude who inspects my property. I had to get rid of ALL of my beautiful walnut firewood because it was stacked against the garage (kept dry and very neatly). The guy who got it was practically dancing and singing. I had to get rid of all of my wonderful oak pallets. Firewood/pallets ALL GONE. I cried. Not kidding.

    Coveting the great husband!! I have zero companion/help/support/lover/friend.

    Coveting the land. I have such a tiny TINY yard…my backyard is just a swamp from so much rain here. Lost 3 of my 6 hens. The gnats are driving them insane. I douse them down with vanilla in the morning but the hens have the tiny yard so ripped up that it’s just soup. I am debating on what to do. Actually I do know the inevitable answer to that……..get the kleenex.

    Even with your cut in income, you have fortune compared to me.

    My neighbors cringe because my garden is in the front yard (oh GASP!).

    You are living the life I wish that I could have. I’m jealous, but I’m happy for you. Your voice is so elated and bright. Good for you!!! You were a very inspiring guest…living the life. Best wishes and thanks for being so much fun to listen to.

    • Ronnie, I listened to the show yesterday, and promptly sent my husband a text asking him if I really sounded like that! Eeeekk!!! Hahaha.. It was a lot of fun!

      Sometimes I wish I had the smaller lot. I really miss the house we had in California. Mainly because I redid the thing just before I met hubby all by myself! I loved it! Small house and lot and absolutely no vegi garden!! (Till we started prepping! Squash and roses work well together by the way.) But hey I made built in cabinets for my coach purses in the master bedroom!!!! 😉

      The gnats are driving me nuts also! I just made a spray today with essential oils and witch hazel that seems to be working well.. so far. I came in without torn up ankles today at least!

      Note to self: Don’t change insurance!!! I would be crying also if I had to get rid of my (dare I say it???!!) Junk er, stuff!!!

      Have a good cry, then put the kleenex away! There are solutions to all issue’s and never give up on finding them. Pinterest is a great place to find idea’s also… No more crying! Kleenex’s are expensive!!! 🙂 Besides I can guarantee I have more muddy staining dirt then you! and mine has been known to try and swallow me up!!

      Here’s something to make you laugh… the first 3 months I lived here, hubby was still down south working till his job started here. I came up and started mine and worked on getting the house in order. In order to get to my car, (I insisted on wearing my pretty, and very impractical shoes back then) I would have to put on the ugly knee high dirt boots, hike up to the upper level to the suv (no stairs back then)… get in the back door butt first, take off the boots, careful not to touch anything with them, as I was staining my pretty clothes…. put them in a bucket in the back… climb over everything and into the drivers seat with my pretty shoes that matched my outfit and put them on and repeat that at 2 in the morning when I came home. With absolutely no street lights!!! Total darkness!

      I look back now and just have to laugh!!! Seriously!! I sold all those shoes on Ebay a few months ago! I earned enough money to support my #2 drill bit needs! You can never have to many drill bits!!

  4. Does anyone know what that “zone alarm” system they were talking about? It sounds interesting and something I may have been looking for.

  5. I loved this show, i wish she lived by me, we would be great friends, thank for all your work.

    • Cheryl, I wish I lived by you also!!! It would be nice to have someone to talk too that would understand me! Ok, that might be asking for a lot.. how about someone to help/share work on our land! You help me build a coop and next we build one on your lot… and so on???

      Sound fun? Well, fun till the fox glove smacks you in the face and whips your hat across the land!!!

      🙂 Tab

  6. Cool show. Cool gal. Reminds me of when I was young. I didn’t know there was anything a woman couldn’t do with the right tools. I got my first welsummer chicken last year, so I can tell you the eggs are cinnamon color. I too did animals with my daughter for 4 H, so I started spinning and weaving, etc. thinking I could replace clothes from scratch if needed, but I went to China for three years and while I was gone, two guys I called friends borrowed my Pat Green carder (without my permission) and disappeared. So now my heart is broken and the price went up so much that I have no hope of replacing it. I still have lots of wool to do up, so I can’t give up. But in the meanwhile I’m learning to make cordage out of Indian hemp (dogbane). It’s like spinning and plying without a carder or wheel. We’ll see how it weaves and crochets. I found three patches of dogbane on my place just a couple of weeks ago, so I’m stoked
    and we will see. Love your pictures of projects. I too live on a hill and just started the woodybeds on slopes and it’s working wonderfully.

    • Pat Green is my carder too!!! Oh wow, it’s been a long time since I got to play with it, let alone look at it!!

      I will be getting a welsummer chicken! It was an awesome suggestion! Oh I learned so much on that show from him. My head is STILL spinning with idea’s!!!

  7. Great show! I am not alone. So very glad to hear the excitement from another woman when she gets dirt gravel tools pallets. Pallets work great for building. Built 10 x8 shed by myself in two days. Painted sided door floor the entire thing. The floor and walls go up so fast and easy.

    Ha and nope it never ends always something to do. When you add animals into the mix lord love a duck every day is an adventure. As long as you can keep standing all is good. So I really cracked up with the comments of sliding down the hill. Yup you gotta keep the humor.

    • Oh ya gotta love life!!!! Last week one of my husband’s bee’s pooped on my head!! I was like, what was that plop, and felt, and sure enough!! Bee poop!!! Seriously I can’t make this stuff up if I tried… Today? Assaulted by a foxglove! Darn think smacked me and flew my hat off my head!

      I wanna see pictures of your pallet shed!!! Pretty please!!!! Are they online?

  8. Good job babe. I am one very lucky and proud husband. Thanks Jack. She was a nervous wreck for a week wondering what to talk about. I knew she’d do great.

    • Sounds like you get some credit here too, for doing your part behind the scenes.

      If you guys are getting both ducks and chickens I suggest: separate housing, “water nipples” for the water, and automatic door open/close (like the Add-a-motor D20 on a timer). Many ways to rig a predator-proof latch – I’m sure Tabitha can come up with something that works.

      Best of luck to y’all.

      • Thanks! Yeah, I have already seen her looking at catalogs at the automatic coop doors… She usually gets up early, but would like the option not to. I support that. She works hard.

      • Mike you are so right about the nipples. I just put my flock of chickens on them. They didn’t take to the idea, but I took their regular water can at bed time and put them in with a 5 gallon bucket and 8 nipples in the coop.

        As you know chickens often don’t trust new things. When I let them out in the AM they were clearly thirsty and I figured I would give them say an hour to adapt vs. risking loosing them in out heat. But they followed me like make with the water jackass and I tapped the nipples a bunch and they were looking at it. Came back in 5 minutes and they were tearing it up. Now they have two buckets and with 18 birds I only have to fill them about once a week and no mess.

        The geese will learn what a nipple is when they graduate from the tractor. Right now they have a 15 gallon rubber tub from TSC that is a waterer and a pond. I move them and dump the pond on the fertilized grass about 4 times a day. They are making one VERY green strip of grass right now. Those damn things are insane, they are about 5 times larger then when I got them 18 days ago when they were one day old.

        The geese are going to mostly just free range but I have a plan, a “goose support system” that should hold them in a general area when they ain’t following me around that is.

        The idea is to get this trailer from TSC, http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/groundworkreg%3B-extra-heavy-duty-utility-trailer-1500-lb-capacity

        It will carry a 100 gallon water tank, a 50 gallon flat stock tank like this, http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/rubbermaidreg%3B-structural-foam-stock-tanks-50-gal–capacity?cm_vc=-10005

        I will also built a sort of shade shelter that hangs off the back where I will hang a poultry waterer and feeder. I figure I can just tow it to the area I want them mostly working and will only need to bring it in to top it off about once a week. This is one of those we shall see how it works ideas but it beats the crap out of electro fence and all that comes with it.

        • If i wasn’t going to Ben Falk’s PDC this September with the wife, I would definitely be using this information. I need to remember to look back through these messages when i get chickens/other animals next year.

      • Norcal Mike, thanks for the motor name.. I was in the process of researching them… Hubby said he would get me one so I could sleep in…. How he knew I was stalling on getting chicken’s because I wouldn’t be able to sleep in is beyond me… but then again, we have already established he is one smart man!!

        Personally I think he reads my mind! 😉

    • You have a cool wife, Mr. Bettencourt. You are very blessed that she is so on board with the homestead lifestyle. Many of us are jealous, brother, and wish our wives were into it that much!

  9. OMG don’t often leave a comment but this woman is awesome Jack I see a follow up interview with this one 🙂
    Excellent show

    • Pierre,
      The checks in the mail! 😉 What a fun experience that was! Jack makes it so easy to share with him and seriously, I was taking note’s!!! Smart smart man!!

  10. After mentally digesting yesterday and today’s podcasts, I think it’s best to make lists. I am learning what I CAN’T do and that is important too. I know what I wish I could do and what I deeply want to do but in the real world it ain’t gonna happen (at this point in time). So I need to focus on what I do have.

    And yes, Mr. Bettencourt….you are a lucky man and she is indeed lucky as well. I am going to guess that you two probably appreciate one another a lot more after actually hearing the podcast and reading all of the comments.

    It was a great show, made me stop and think about a lot of things that I need to have goals for. I need to re-evaluate!!

    • Ronnie, rather then thinking about what you can’t do… think about what you need to do.. and then work on ways of getting it done. There is a lot I can’t do that I would love to do, but simply don’t have funds or space… or the fact I am on a hill and can’t get some equipment in here… so I just revise the plan and change the way I do something. Like the terracing… It needs to be with a cedar type wood.. but couldn’t afford it.. Needed to get it done before we moved to the next phase.. So we opted for a cheaper wood that will last a few years which will give us the time to slip em out of place and put in a longer lasting wood as they need replacing.

      Seriously, I sit on the land sometimes starring at an issue and as I walk away it pops in my brain how to work around it. Either that, or I surf for ideas on pinterest.. and boom, there’s the solution that someone has done, but I can tweak and make it work!

      And pinterest is for survival peeps also! Huge survival board sections on there.

      Good luck on your lists!! I love making lists also!! 😉

  11. Jack, you are thinking about a t.v show for real preppers? What a good idea :). The only thing I kinda see that is a problem is that there all ready is one out there. It’s called Real Day Preppers. I have watched it and its a free online thing. Maybe you can work with that guy or do some kind of side thing.

    • Right now it is just an idea, why would you think the fact that one exists is a problem though?

        • Dude, that isn’t something you can prevent others from doing. You can trademark a name or a brand but not a concept as broad as a show about prepping.

  12. Tabitha, you may want to consider learning leather craft. it does not plug into the wall.

    • We have actually talked about that!!! Hubby wants to do it. I actually want to learn it because I have a design to carry concealed for me… And wanted to try it out. I actually played around years ago with it.. but now, it takes on a whole new meaning and with the cows that live across the way from me…… well… they better keep moooooooving! Hahahaha

      Oh sometimes I crack myself up! No, seriously, It’s on the future list. Right now, I see chickens and ducks and nothing much else.

  13. Really enjoyed this interview. Tabitha is cool. I’d actually like to hear her back on the show. She keeps it lively and interesting, and she’s making real progress on her homestead.

    • Awe, Backwoods Engineer, thank you!! Today I cleared the land for the chicken coop and staked it out!! Tomorrow, I am hoping to rob by greenhouse wood stash and get the foundation done!

      Shhhh… don’t tell hubby, I plan to beg for more lumber on his next day off!!!

  14. The book that she mentioned at the beginning of the interview, was that
    Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles? I’m interested in reading/listening to it myself.

    • Yes, that is the book I used to catch her interest, but there are many good books out there. We personally are really enjoying Glen Tate’s 299 Days series right now. And I think we have another series on our list to read, but haven’t gotten to it yet.

  15. I loved this episode. She reminds me so much of myself…so it was very inspirational. I too would love to hear her on the show again! 🙂

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