Knowvember: Where Are You At?!

For today's blog post, I decided to answer the questions asked by Robert Birming for November. Now, I've talked a lot about myself and my blog already, so I'll try to not be redundant here. If you're curious to learn more, I recommend the podcast episode I did with James. Or, the interviews I've done with Hyde and Zachary Kai

Now, let's get started.

Share a Photo of Yourself

To start, here's a group picture I really enjoy of myself and the other executives I worked with during my final year of Write Club

Click here to see!

What's the Story Behind the Name?

My full name, as you're probably aware, is Brennan Kenneth Brown. My Dad overheard the name "Brennan" while working at the Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. And "Kenneth" is the name of my maternal Grandfather, Kenneth Gordon, who was an artist and painter inspired by the Group of Seven. When I was in elementary school, I went by the nickname Pickles because they were my favourite food (and still are).

I chose the domain brennan.day because I wanted something simple and short. This blog almost lived at brennan.page (which I also own) but I enjoy the sunny cheery nature of day! And for a lot of this blog, my posts were also written on a daily basis.

What is My Blog Mostly About?

Navel-gazing, mostly. Hah! I'm half-joking. If I look the most-often used tags on this blog, the answer is somewhere along the lines of the Internet, the craft of writing, culture, politics, science, religion, Indigenous issues, etc.

But really, I am always just writing about people, in some way or another. I love people. Back in March I did an inventory of my writing interest and the throughlines of my blog. In a way, that's overdue for another audit, but in reality I don't think I ever drift that far from my core interests.

Where in the World do I Blog From?

I blog from Canada. While I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, I am currently living in Calgary, Alberta. Also known as Cowtown, as well as Blue Sky City, as it is one of the sunniest major cities in Canada, averaging about 333 days of sunshine every year! Yet another point for the .day TLD. It also often ranks as one of the friendliest cities in the world. 😃

I blog most often from my bedroom, sometimes my study in the basement. Sometimes at a desk sitting proper (like right now), most of the time with bad posture sitting in bed. I've recently started trying my hand at creating a custom CMS for my blog, so I'm writing there in the prototype right now.

...No, really. Where are you at?!

Okay, I thought that Birming's questions fit well to go into the IndieWeb carnival this month, Z1NZ0L1N's theme of answering a series of questions regarding where you're at, literally. Fascinating questions about the ecology and wildlife and flora of where you exist. Luckily for me, I've done a rather thorough examination of where I live! One of my favourite creative writing classes I took while in university was Advanced Creative Nonfiction: Writing Place, another was on environmental humanities, which is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of study that merges traditional humanities disciplines with the natural and social sciences to examine ecological crises, climate change, and human-nature relationships.

The textbook assigned for Writing Place was Linda Lappin's *The Soul of Place: A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci. I recommend it to any creative writer, as it is full of interesting writing prompts and is relatively inexpensive.

With that out of the way, let me begin answering the questions!

1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.

My water starts in the mountains, in the Elbow River headwaters. It's snow in winter, sitting as snowpack until spring melt, and it rains mostly from May to October (though it has been raining a bit here in November, I guess due to the Super Duper El Nino). The Eblow drains into the Glenmore Reservior, supplying around half of Calgary's water. The Glenmore plant serves south Calgary, which is where I live.

The raw water is filtered through screens, aluminum sulphate, sand and poylmer, then it's chlorinated, then filtered again through coal and sand. Only then is it pumped into transmission mains.

My drain water goes to Bonnybrook, and after UV disinfection it flows into the Bow River.

Right now, actually, there's city-wide Stage 4 water restrictions because of the years-long trouble we've been having with the Bearspaw South Feeder Main, and hopefully that's finally being fixed.

2. How many days till the moon is full? (Slack of two days allowed.)

About twelve days. and it's also going to be a supermoon!

3. What soil series are you standing on?

Hard to say, exactly. Fine sediments from Glacial Lake Calgary are now the soil of much of Western Calgary. So, I think Black Chernozem on lake silt over till.

4. What was the total rainfall in your area last year (July–June)? (Slack: 1″ for every 20″.)

Above normal, I think. We get around 350mm-410mm of rainfall in the city in a year. July 2025 brought over 160mm of rain but 2025 as a whole was drier than average across the Prairies.

5. When was the last time a fire burned in your area?

Near to me, there was a house fire in April 2025. If you're talking wildfires, then there were brush fires north of Shaganappi Point Golf Course on May 5, 2025, a few kilometres north.

6. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the culture that lived in your area before you?

I live on stolen land. This is Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Tsuut'ina and Stoney Nakoda land, and the confluence area was a fording place for bison herds. Bison was the staple. Hunters used buffalo jumps and guided herds with fire and wolf or calf disguises

7. Name five native edible plants in your region and their season(s) of availability.

• Saskatoon: peak late July to mid-August.
• Buffaloberry: late July to mid-August.
• Chokecherry: late August to early September.
• Cow parsnip: young stalks in early spring, harvested around knee height.
• Wild strawberry: Late June through July.

I'll note that foraging in city and provincial parks is illegal!

8. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?

Mostly from the north and northwest. In Alberta clippers, winds shift to north or northwest as the cold front passes. Warm pacific air arrives from the west as Chinook winds.

9. Where does your garbage go?

One of the City's three active landfills: East Calgary, Spyhill or Shepard. Composting also goes to Shepard. The silt from the water plants goes to City landfills too.

10. How long is the growing season where you live?

Not long. Frost is possible during any month, but you'll probably really only be able to grow from late May to September.

11. On what day of the year are the shadows the shortest where you live?

I feel as though the answer is same for most of the northern hemisphere? June solstice, at solar noon. Which is around 1:30pm.

12. When do the deer rut in your region, and when are the young born?

Rut happens this month! Whitetail breeding peaks in November, with mule deer bucks rutting too. Mule deer fawns are typically born in early June.

13. Name five grasses in your area. Are any of them native?

Foothills rough fescue, Parry oatgrass, and Idaho fescue are native. Kentucky bluegrass and smooth brome are not native. I love grass, but I really wish we didn't have lawn culture.

14. Name five resident and five migratory birds in your area.

Residents: black-capped chickadee, great horned owl, downy woodpecker garbage-loving black-billed magpie, and red-breasted nuthatch.

Migrants: yellow-rumped warbler and lesser yellowlegs pass through in spring. White-throated sparrow and Swainson's hawk and tree swallow also migrate.

15. What is the land use history of where you live?

Shockingly, before the 1900's, it was prairies. Rancher Thomas Jackson ran cattle here and carved out the subdivisions in 1906. Annexation was in 1910, with single-storey clapboard houses, and then zoned for duplexes in the 1930s. Though most construction happened after WW2. Richmond Road was, reportedly, an Indigenous trail.

16. What primary ecological event/process influenced the land form where you live? (Bonus special: what’s the evidence?)

Glaciation! Laurentide and Cordilleran ice met along a line through Calgary, and meltwater ponded as Glacial Lake Calgary. There are giant quartzite erratics like Okotoks' Big Rock, and boulders on Nose Hill, which are evidence of this.

17. What species have become extinct in your area?

Bison antiquus remains have been found, along with mammoth and camel. If you want something more recent than the ice age, downstream in the Bow watershed, the Banff long-nosed dace went extinct in 1986

18. What are the major plant associations in your region?

Oh, so many. As I've already mentioned, fescue–oatgrass grassland. As well as aspen and balsam poplar stands, buckbrush and rose shrublands, and poplar–willow floodplain forest along the Elbow.

19. From where you’re reading this, point north.

My bedroom window points towards 17th Avenue, which is where I put my desk for fresh air and a nice view, so I'm actually always oriented north when I'm writing here.

20. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?

I'm so happy this is the last question. Here, it's the wonderful and purple prairie crocus! It blooms as early as March, and flowers in Alberta in late April. It's actually a member of the buttercup family, rather than a true crocus. It's a symbol of renewal and endurance, as well as the return of life after a long, cold Canadian winter.