Dogs wait to be blessed during Sunday service at Christ Church Episcopal in Gardiner.  The blessing celebrates Saint Francis of Assisi, a Christian patron of animals, who died in October of 1226. 

BIG CHOICE: Sam Hayes, 5, helps his mother, Leah, choose a pumpkin for their Mount Vernon home Tuesday at the Pine Bluff Farm in Mount Vernon. The couple picked a pumpkin from the patch and a smaller gourd from the farm stand.

CHECK UP: Game Wardens Terry Hughes, left, and Dave Simmons inspect a mixed bag of ducks Monday collected by hunters Paul Downs, bottom second from left, Jim Deaton, right, and Downs’ 10-year-old son, Camryn, on Lake Cobbossee in West Gardiner.

SPLIT: Freeman Lord lugs a slab of hemlock he cut Wednesday at his family’s Hallowell saw mill. Lord is cutting beams for a barn he plans to assemble with wood from the family’s lot. The mill was built by his father, Roger, the same year Freeman was born, 1940.

THE BIG PATCH: Jeremy Burbank washes pumpkins Monday for sale along the road at his family’s farm in Vassalboro. Burbank, his wife, Lora Lei-Burbank, and their seven children cultivated approximately 1,200 of the decorative gourds this season at Oak Grove Farm.

Maggie Albert, 5, of Lisbon Falls, waves at people participating in the third annual Buddy Walk in Capitol Park in Augusta on Sunday to raise awareness about Down Syndrome.  Albert rode on the shoulders of pediatrician Kieran Kammerer, MD, during the stroll around the Park sponsored by the National Down Syndrome Society.

TOUCH UP: Jack Parshall saws a fissure Tuesday into the concrete wall of the North Wayne Dam in Wayne as part of the town’s repair of the dam. Workers from T Buck Construction, of Auburn, plan to repair cracks in the concrete and replace the stop logs in the dam.