Photo of the Day: Petting Zoo, Fall Festival, Englewood NJ

This past Sunday, my hometown of Englewood, NJ, held what it called its “Fall Festival.” There are those—high-school students and their parents, I would guess, most prominently—who see the period immediately after Labor Day as the fall.

I still hold out for the date of the traditional autumnal equinox—i.e., tomorrow. Pushing for any earlier date ignores not only that celestial fact, but the gradual but real increase in September temperatures over the last few decades.

Well, even if my city’s sense of seasons might be a bit off, its sense of what will bring out crowds isn’t. This past summer, the festival featured roughly 50 merchants and information vendors promoting their businesses in Depot Square.

But I couldn’t help but smile at the free petting zoo. Its creatures certainly appealed to me—a big reason why I took this photograph.