Don’t miss the 13th annual Downeast Center Ring Circus band concert, featuring the 40-piece band under the baton of its delightful conductor, Gene Nichols, associate professor of music at the University of Maine Machias.

This extraordinary concert is at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 11, at Miles Lane Middle School in Bucksport.

Bob Pentland wrote that this annual, fun-filled event for the whole family is free. A suggested donation of $5 benefits scholarships and will be gratefully accepted.

The band awarded 23 scholarships recently to students in Hancock, Penobscot and Washington counties.

The music of this group includes marches, specialty numbers, overtures and solos. They will have you clapping your hands and tapping your toes, and the kids can dance in the aisles with the clowns. If you want, you can even sing along with the band.

The members of this special band offer something for everyone are not only local residents, but also hail from Washington, D.C., Florida, New Brunswick and several New England states.

Pentland reports that “special program support is provided by the town of Bucksport, the Bucksport Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, the Bangor Band and the Brewer Hometown Band.”

Students interested in applying for a 2009 circus band scholarship can e-mail Martha Pedrick at mpedrick@mindspring.com or write Joni Wardell, 480 Castine, Road, Orland 04472.

For more information about the band, its programs or the scholarships, call 469-6529 or 469-3333.

Supporters of the Stonington Public Library announce their major fundraiser of the year, the annual house tour.

The sixth annual SPL tour, “Along the Waterfront: A Century in Stonington Architecture,” is 1-4 p.m. Friday, July 11, in that delightful, coastal Maine community.

The six featured houses include The Lobster Trap, a three-story 1900 Victorian landmark with a tower; a 2002-built reproduction of an 1875 one-room schoolhouse with 1925 conversions; and a renovated 1979 Robert Adams house at Sand Beach.

Also, a recently renovated home on Moose Island; a century-old shoreside home with original flooring and tin ceilings; and a well-known, classic, two-story, yellow home on Indian Point Road.

Numbered for identification and able to be visited in any sequence, all houses are within a mile of the library on Main Street.

Tickets are $12 and are available at the library; by calling Mary Blackmore, 367-2409; or by e-mailing stoningtonlibrary@stonington.lib.me.us.

A limited number of tickets will be available the day of the tour at the library.

The Hospital Aid of Waldo County General Hospital presents its 18th annual Garden Walk from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, July 11, and Saturday, July 12, rain or shine in the Belfast area.

Advance tickets are $12, and tickets the days of the tour are $15.

Tickets are available at the Fertile Mind Bookshop, Mr. Paperback and the Hospital Gift Shop in Belfast and at Left Bank Bookshop in Searsport.

On the days of the tour, tickets can be purchased at the above businesses or any of the gardens.

Two of the gardens are in downtown Belfast: the Richard-Wilborn garden and the Stallworth garden, where author Rebecca Sawyer-Fay of Camden and photographer Lynn Karlin of Belfast, will sign their new book, “Gardens Maine Style Act II,” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. You can also purchase signed books for $35 on Friday.

On the city’s east side you can visit the Maycock-Pendleton working garden and the Sears garden overlooking Penobscot Bay.

The two gardens in Swanville are the Frey garden and the Sawyer garden at Fernwood Nursery.

Eight miles from Belfast is the Jackson garden in Monroe, with a route that takes you along the west side of Swan Lake.

For more information, call Wilma Moses, 338-2785; Sharon Franco, 858-9700; Sandy Gordon, 930-6739; or e-mail sgordon@wchi.com.

Selina and Mabel Lufkin wrote the North Brewer Eddington United Methodist Church is hosting the first in its series of Friday “Pies on the Lawn” sales from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (or until sold out) Friday, July 11, at the church, 31 Main Road in Eddington.

The remaining “Pies on the Lawn” sales will be the same time July 18, July 25 and Aug. 1 at the church.

“We are excited to give this new fundraiser a try,” they wrote adding, “we would be happy to take special orders from customers for the following Friday.”

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; javerill@bangordailynews.net; 990-8288.