Kaitlynn Littlefield is escorted Wednesday from the former Hodgkins Middle School in Augusta by a member of Augusta Police Department’s special response team during hostage negotiation training in Augusta. Littefield and four colleagues from Crisis in Counseling portrayed hostages while law enforcement students from Thomas College and the University of Maine at Augusta depicted armed gunmen barricaded in a classroom, according to Augusta Police Lt. Kevin Lully. Negotiators from the Lewiston and Augusta Police Departments practiced persuading the hostage takers to surrender during the day-long training.

Kaysie Dostie casts into Bond Brook on Monday while fishing on her grandfather’s land in Augusta. Dostie said she lost a fish but expected a few more to strike her worm.

Alewives stack up Sunday in Seven Mile Stream in Vassalboro, while migrating from the Atlantic Ocean to Webber Pond.

Maine Department of Marine Resources technician Jason Beaudry leaps out of a boat in Gardiner recently after searching the Kennebec River with biologists Jason Bartlett, center, and Gail Whipplehauser with a side scan sonar between Gardiner and Augusta. According to Whipplehauser, the scientists are collecting data on the migration of sturgeon, shad and herring that spawn in the river through mid-July.

Barbara Estabrook tosses the limb of a shrub over the fence of her home Monday in Gardiner. Estabrook said she was applying the pruning skills she recently acquired during a workshop in Longfellow’s Greenhouse in Manchester.

Scott Elliot applies a coat of gold paint Monday on the exterior trim of the Monkitree gallery on Water Street in Gardner. Warmer weather and the imminent arrival of summer tourists has merchants and builders finishing up spring construction work. “Tis the season,” Elliot said.

Patrick, left, and Harlan Prescott on Sunday pound nails out of boards pulled from a barn they are taking apart at the former Quimby dairy farm in Augusta. Father and son started disassembling the three story hay barn built in 1920 in mid-March and plan to sell the wood recovered from the structure. “We salvage everything, including the nails,” Harlan Prescott said.

Kathy Simmons cuts a garden plot Sunday at Sherrie and Jason Brann’s home in Sidney with a pair of Percheron that belong to her father, Pete Stratton. The team pulled a Syracuse Sulky Plow from the 1920s through an acre of soil with the Brann family and friends picking up stones that emerged in the furrow. Stratton said he plans to return and harrow the plot later.

Russell Coston of Windsor releases a catfish he caught Wednesday in a hoop net on Cobbossee Stream in Gardiner. Coston said he was collecting mature eels and suckers for fishing bait and released the by- catch, such as perch and catfish, unharmed.

Members of The American Chestnut Foundation cover chestnut seeds planted Thursday, in a lot managed by the Small Woodlot Owners Association of Maine, on Case Road in Winthrop. The volunteers and staffers of the non-profit group planted 900 chestnut seeds as part of the group’s effort to plant a total of 3,600 in four different seed orchards managed by SWOAM in Winthrop, according to Maine chapter vice president Eric Evans. The American Chestnut Foundation was started in 1983 to reverse the decline of the hard wood tree species.