Earth Beat, 24 June 2011. Summertime. And the living is easy. Or is it? From summer depression and turning your backyard garden into a farm to scanning the horizon for forest fires, we take a look at the hard work that revolves around warmer weather.

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Summer blues
Dr John Sharp has spent many a glorious summer on the island of Nantucket off the east coast of the US. He has delightful memories of gentle breezes, isolated coves and evening cocktails. But it’s not all summer fun and frolics. He can also be a terrible summer grouch and it turns out he’s not the only one.
Link - More about John's book The Emotional Calendar

Summer splashing
One of the joys of the warmer weather is cooling down by running into the sea, jumping into a deep pool or even gingerly popping in a toe or two. Paul Clark lives in the Yorkshire Dales in England and when the summer comes, he’ll be found finding any opportunity to take the plunge. He found it was also the perfect way to concentrate his mind (photos at bottom of page).

My empire of dirt
Summer brings idealistic visions of lush gardens, bulging with fresh produce. Red tomatoes, crispy cucumbers, crunchy radishes… but what if the project gets out of control? That was the dilemma that faced Lisa Howard, who came home one day to find her husband Manny had decided to turn their garden – in Brooklyn, New York – into a miniature farm. Host Marnie Chesterton talks to the couple about how the project affected them (photos at bottom of page).
Video: Manny Howard gives a tour of his backyard farm in Brooklyn for New York Magazine.

Looking for fire
Every year, all around the world, wildfires seem to be part of the landscape of summer. Philip Connors works in a fire tower on a 10,000 foot high peak in southern New Mexico, looking out over nearly one million acres of roadless wilderness. And each summer, that million acres gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times. Which is why he’s there. He speaks to Marnie about what his summers are like (photos at bottom of page).
Video - Promo for Philip's book Fire Season:

The tree lover
When the weather turns warm, a great number of us run for the woods for our summer vacations. But what do you do if you grew up there and then moved to the city? It beckons even more. When you’ve had enough, you return to the woods to... build a tree house. Jonas Selberg Augustsen is a filmmaker who spent one of his summers a few years ago filming his own making of a tree house in northern Sweden. He speaks to Marnie about his film, and the house.
Video - Trailer for Jonas' film The Tree Lover:

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