by Texas Homesteader ~  

I used to worry about my hosting abilities when entertaining guests here on the Homestead for a few days. Can I measure up to the awesome hosting experiences we enjoy when we stay with them?

Well, I’ve learned that although those city nights are fun, we’re able to welcome our guests just fine… Country Style!

We can’t offer the fun array of restaurants & entertainment venues they always offer us when we’re staying with them in the city. I often worry: Will they still feel entertained & cared for?

Preparing For Guests In Our Country Home

Since we’ll be entertaining a guest at the homestead for a few days I began preparing the welcome. I wanted to add a personal touch.

Other than standard cleaning & fluffing the nest, I wanted fresh flowers to welcome our guests. How can you possibly perfect the beauty that’s right outside our door?

I keep a brown bottle that was found on our property years ago and I filled it with lavender blooms and rosemary from our dual-purpose landscaping. I thought it added a charming country touch.

Another vase is filled with flowers and fountain grasses I came across in our pasture. Beautiful!

Country Entertainment?

Although the house was ready-to-receive I wondered what we could offer our guests in the form of entertainment?

I often compare our hosting methods with the thoughtful hosting of others who have invited us into their homes.

For instance when we would go visiting elsewhere, as soon as we arrived there would be an array of restaurants to try and entertainment venues to visit. There are musicals, plays, movies, museums and the like.

I worried that living in such a rural area we could not offer any of these fun activities. Would our guests simply get bored out here in the quiet of the country?

As it turns out my hosting fears were unfounded. There is never an absence of entertainment right here on the homestead.

Country Visitor Entertainment: Fishing

We have plenty of catfish and bass in our ponds to keep those anglers busy for all, young or old. Our guests always seem to love it!

Target Practice

We have a clay target thrower and on occasion enjoy doing a little practice shooting. The deluge of plastic trash from shotgun shell wads that blanket our pastures makes for a busy clean-up afterward.

So we still do a little practice shooting. But for environmental reasons we prefer target practice with a pistol instead of a shotgun. We have a safe spot where guests can safely target practice or sight in their guns.

And what about shooting with bows & arrows? We get into some pretty fun (and sometimes trash-talking) target shooting contests using both compound and long bows and arrows.

We always make a bragging-rights competition out of it. And it’s always a hoot!

Drone Flying

With so much area around us, it’s fun to put the drone in the air and watch the scenery from our screens below. It’s so much fine to fly the drone over the barn or the pond. Perhaps out to the pasture where the cattle are grazing.

This birds-eye view is fascinating and beautiful to us. But it’s especially exciting for our guests whom have never seen this beautiful property from that angle.

Mother Nature’s Entertainment

Hiking is a fun activity for our guests too. There’s much to see in the creeks and tree lines.

We’ve watched as a mama raccoon shuttled her newborn babies to a new location – so cute!

There are all manner of critters to watch – lumbering opossums, soaring hawks, strange armadillos and colorful butterflies.

And there’s always hunting opportunities with the many Wild Hogs that occupy this part of NE Texas.

Bonfire

Fire safety has always been of upmost importance to me. But if the weather’s right, the wind is low and we’re not under a burn ban, we enjoy treating our guests to a bonfire.

We have a spot in the pasture where we typically pile tree trimmings and the like. The grass in that area is already short and we keep proper fire-fighting equipment nearby just in case.

The fire is started well before sundown but it usually burns for a couple of hours. So we and our guests sit back and enjoy the glow of the fire as we chat about the fun we’ve had that day.

Sometimes the bonfire is small, sometimes larger. But if we’re going to have to burn this pile of trimmings anyway, might as well make it entertaining, right? This is a fun guest-worthy activity, especially when the weather is chilly.

Relaxing

Of course there’s the enjoyment of sitting on the back porch and visiting with each other. We often have an icy-cold beverage in hand, watching in awe as the brilliant sun sinks into the western horizon in a beautiful blaze.

I always hear exclamations of how beautiful the vibrant stars are in the nighttime sky out here – stars that are difficult to see in the typical city environment.

So I’ve found my entertaining fears are always unfounded. In fact, our guests aren’t looking for a city-inspired entertainment visit.

They’re actually looking for that peaceful entertainment of our rural surroundings. And our guests never get bored. Instead they thoroughly enjoy their restful visit!

We’re often told that after spending time on our ranch our visitors feel incredibly relaxed and refreshed. Hey, isn’t that what you would want to hear from any guest? SUCCESS!

~TxH~

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