Does Tasha Tudor chop her own wood to heat her home, and haul her own water at age 90? I'm guessing she has a little help around her homestead.

Back in my youth, I not only chopped the wood for our wood heated home, but I hauled the water we used too--we had just an outhouse, and no plumbing.

What I discovered is that people romanticize really stupid stuff, like back breaking work, which is what the whole "back to the land" movement did, IMO. Went down that whole "self-sufficiency equals integrity" load of BS. I followed for a brief time (a little over a year and a half), and decided technology was a brilliant thing--and moved on into energy efficient building instead.