More daylight means more time for swimming lessons for Claudine Wroten. Recently, she was working with 18-month old Jack Hazlett in her backyard pool.

OK, sun. You’ve got 14 hours, 54 minutes and 45 seconds to do your business before breaking for the night.

With the Earth tilted toward you at its optimal angle, this official first day of summer is certain to illuminate us with your most extended appearance of the year: one second longer than yesterday, and three seconds more than tomorrow.

And while your lengthy stay will be inevitable and even inescapable, the effects of these 53,685 seconds of sunlight will mean different things to different people.

So here are three stories of people whose enjoyment, comfort and even livelihood will be very much affected by the extra time afforded to them today by you, a star born 4.6 billion years ago.

Time to swim

Each day Claudine Wroten opens her back door at 8 a.m. sharp, the sun already illuminating the sky and slowly peeling back the shadow cast across her pool by a dense line of trees.

By the time the sun ducks back behind her home on North Michigan Street, she will have cajoled, encouraged, dipped, turned and otherwise taught dozens of area children both how to swim and enjoy swimming.

What they can’t possibly learn: How much Wroten is looking forward to the first day of summer and — by definition — the day with the longest-lasting sunlight of the year.

“I can’t wait,” she says, her bright white teeth offering plenty of contrast to her dark tan skin. “I just wish we had more of them.”

Such days are perfect for her business, Claudine’s Private Swimming, now 15 years old. Children walk down the limestone path to the backyard, then learn their material before getting to the reward: a Dum Dum sucker from a poolside bowl.

More sunlight means more summer, more time to swim, more room on the schedule for lessons. She typically goes from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with a break in the afternoon.

That’s why today’s arrival is somewhat bittersweet. The first day of the summer may be the longest, but that also means the days now will get shorter and shorter.

“I wish we didn’t go downhill from here,” she says.

Angie Zeller, left, hopes today is a sunny day so her five children can play outside. Jumping recently on their trampoline are, from left, Drew Zeller, 13; Hayden Ponzer, 11; Karsen Ponzer, 6; Tucker Ponzer, 8; and Josh Zeller, 9.

Time to chase

Angie Zoller knows what more daytime means.

More driving. More playing. More jumping.

More everything.

“It’s all a blur,” she says.

That’s because Zoller doesn’t have the day all to herself. She’s a mother of five, keeping track of Karsen and Tucker and Hayden and Josh and Drew, ages 6 to 13.

They pass at the time at church, where Zoller volunteers. And they also find themselves going to the store, or a pool, or onto the trampoline in their backyard, or anywhere else where activity can be found and enjoyed by all.

Zoller’s main hope for the longest day of the year is the same one she has most every day during the summer.

“Nice weather,” she says. “Then we can be outside, so hopefully they’ll go to bed early — or somewhat early.”

She doesn’t expect today’s relatively late sunset, approaching 9 p.m., to affect the kids all that much. If they’re tired, they’ll sleep.

The sun will be long gone before her own eyelids close, another fun-filled day done.

“Early-to-bed for me is midnight,” she says. “Then I’m usually back up at 6:30.”

Chicken farmer Margaret Clark stretches a tarp over a portable pen after feeding and watering her chickens on the Clark Family Farm. Clark says that on the longest day of the year, the chickens are awake longer and therefore feed longer and reach a higher weight for market. In back is Clark’s daughter Ellie Clark, 15.

Time to work

Margaret Clark and 1,000 chickens live a few miles southwest of Lawrence.

Only one of them isn’t putting on weight.

“In the summer,” Clark says, “I don’t eat as much, because it’s so hot.”

Good thing the warm weather, lasting sunlight and extended days prompt the opposite reaction for the more temporary residents out on the Clark Family Farm, which has been selling pasture-raised chicken meat to discerning locals for a dozen years now.

Today’s extended daylight will afford Clark’s fowl more time for clucking, pecking and — most importantly — consuming feed than during any other day of the year.

“For me it’s the same as the day before and the day after. It’s not that much different,” Clark says, with the matter-of-fact demeanor of an agriculture veteran. “But those chickens — they’re awake longer, so they’re eating more. As they get hungry through that daylight time, they eat.”

Consider this: During late spring and early summer, each pen of 100 chickens gets 10 gallons of feed per day. And after eight weeks — the time it takes to reach market weight — each chicken tips the scales at 4.5 pounds.

“This time of year everything’s rolling along nicely,” she says.

But in the fall, when daylight dawns an hour later and departs an hour earlier, the chickens eat less — and that means weigh less — during their eight weeks on the farm.

“Then they may be just three-and-a-half pounds,” she says. “It’s significant.”