The Schwaller Mill From the Layenmühle we walk only a few minutes and the Schwaller Mühle, also called Jakobs- or Müllerjuppsmühle, appears in front of us. Because the mills used to be named after their owners, the names changed frequently. In the Schwaller Mill, an old, half-ruined cottage attracts our attention. Upon closer inspection, we realize that it must have been a former bakehouse. The round brick oven is still clearly visible, and a cheeky look into the unlocked interior confirms our assumption. How many generations will have baked their daily bread here? (The bakehouse has been renovated in the meantime and can now be used again for baking bread) In a tax register at the beginning of the 18th century, an Anton Bunsch is named as Schwaller miller. Shortly after 1800 a Jacob Nick came to the mill. He and his descendants remained in possession of this mill until today. Hermann Nick, as the last miller in the whole valley, stopped the milling operation only in 1964. In the part we have walked through so far, the Baybach valley presents itself as a gentle, wide and flat meadow valley, but below the Schwaller mill, the wooded slopes come close to the brook. And then we see several buildings in front of us, where the first glance says: these are not mills, these are buildings of modern times. And like a contrast to the little bakery we admired earlier as a relic from the old days, the sewage treatment plant Oberes Baybachtal shows the consequences of our today's affluent society. The sewage from 14 surrounding villages is collected and purified in this treatment plant. Of course we want to know, does the plant do justice to this task? It seems so, because the water that flows out of the plant and is fed into the Baybach is flawless in terms of clarity and odor. The hiking trail zigzags past the sewage treatment plant and over a concrete bridge. We always keep to the round signs with the clearly visible "B" (for Baybach) and thus cannot miss the right path. Immediately behind the sewage treatment plant, where the brook comes down from the "Emmelshäuser Heilbrünnchen", an impressive natural monument captures our interest. It is the so-called "Dreispitz", a fir tree that is over 100 years old. At the height of a man, it has branched out into three shoots that shoot up almost 30 meters. One stands in awe in front of this natural wonder, just as one stands in front of a bushy and gnarled beech tree, about 150 years old, which only a little later stands unmistakably on the path. Excerpt from the book "von Mühle zu Mühle" (from mill to mill), a hike through the Baybach Valley, available for 9.00 euros at the Emmelshausen Tourist Information.