I met an extrodinary woman this autumn. She has been wealthy. She has been poor. She has borne children and buried some of them. For a living she uses some of the most advanced technology available and for fun she employs some of the more primitive technologies of American history. Among the things she has learned in her life is that living simply is indeed simple.

She is one of those lucky individuals who has managed to create a job for herself that allows her to work from home via FAX, modem and telephone. But during the summer, for fun, she took a part-time job giving tours of a water-powered grain mill. Using the grain from this mill, she has made many loaves of her own bread. Next year she plans to grow her own grain and to follow it from seed to loaf along its entire journey. In the process she has learned about the people who built the mill, brought their grain to it, lived and worked around it.