About Us

Jane Mio

My bond with the San Lorenzo River has been formed over many years of daily levee walks, which have been rich & diverse with Wildlife & Human observations & episodes. Now I want to tell you about them…

 
Barbara Riverwoman  According to family legend, my spirited great grandmother used to drop everything, including housework, to greet the warblers in the spring. Her good-natured husband, legend says, did the housework. My mother carried forward the tradition, bringing home stacks of bird books from our small town Minnesota library. Her enthusiasm slowly worked its magic on me. In sixth grade I earned my Girl Scout birding badge and eagerly gave a book report on an obscure book called Birds at My Window that I will always remember because it was the first book report I ever gave in which my self-consciousness melted away in the warmth of my enthusiasm for the subject.

Since then, I have been a somewhat lackadaisical birder, having spurts of enthusiasm interrupted by long periods of not touching my binoculars.   I chose my last name in 1980, and it has been my official name ever since.  I chose it not because I knew much about rivers but because I was born on a houseboat on the Minnesota River, a boat that my father built and navigated on the river.  I was also reading Celtic river goddess myths at the time.  Maybe it’s time for me to grow into my name.