Scarecrows help celebrate the season at Cantigny

With all the talk about the Cubs these days, it's possible fall has kind of sneaked up on you.

Let's face it, if the north-side baseball team is still playing meaningful games, it must be early July, right? Surely it can't be October.

But nope, there the Cubs are in the playoffs and there the leaves are, starting to turn colors. And there Cantigny Park was on Saturday, playing host to its annual Fall Festival that has become one of the museum's largest and most popular single-day events on the calendar.

Visitors to the Wheaton museum campus could go on hayrides, paint a pumpkin, listen to music, pet a goat, and laugh with a juggler.

But among the most popular features of the fest was the chance to check out the proliferation of scarecrows - roughly 75 of them - that were created by Cantigny's horticultural staff and a team of volunteers and placed throughout the gardens.

It was enough to remind you that we're smack-dab in the middle of autumn - and that it would be nice if all those scarecrows could put just a little fright into some pesky Cardinals, too.