"To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain." ~ Henry David Thoreau

On a recent spring afternoon, I took a stroll around the Cortland Waterworks.  The Waterworks is a refuge of sorts - fenced in acres within the city limits.  It is home to dozens of deer and other wildlife.  I have been going to the Waterworks for as long as I can remember.  As a child, we would bring crusts of bread to feed the ducks, geese and fish - and the official start of the Christmas season was always when the lights went up at the main building and trees in front.  I shared the same childhood memories with my own child and now, as a long grown adult, I still eagerly await those Christmas lights just after Thanksgiving.

I don't actually walk around the Waterworks anymore the way that I did as a child or with a child of my own - though I drive past them several times a week - so it was especially nice to revisit them on this beautiful day and take a peek at what is right in our backyard.