I’ve been noticing the soft, sinking, collapsing, fluffy, puffed up, loose,… earth (soil) beneath my feet of late in some places in the landscape–especially since the rains started returning in this neck of the woods. (Laurentia, eastern ON; Geiger-Köppen: Dfb) I am fascinated by how (i imagine) moles operate and what they create and leave in their wake.

I am also curious about their role in regeneration. Maybe they are some kind of keystone. Some of their creative works:

• allowing and improving stormwater infiltration;

• facilitate animals, ants, arthropods, bugs, invertebrates, snakes, roots, mycorrhizae, mycelia, hyphae… to using or inhabiting these already-created spaces (piggy-backing, stacking functions, creating edge,…) [Also see the works of Joseph Concannouer–specifically his book “Weeds: Guardians of the Soil (1950 publication. Available as a PDF) wherein he writes about the piggy-backing, multifunctionality, overflowing, abundance,… characteristic of nature and in this case about how mycelia, mycorrhizae, roots, earthworms, water, organic matter AND air arrive here or tap into the already-created tunnels, ‘burrows’, excavated subterranean paths, hallways, mines,… created by WEEDS!]

• improving soil–like by allowing more carbon (C) to be captured there. Labile and recalcitrant C. Crumb creation. Gels and glues like glomalin. Aggregates. Soil bioturbation. Crumb structure. Drilloshpere. This C in this story connects to the water element as well, since one scaffolds, encourages the other. You have surely heard the quote which goes something like: “For every 1% increase in SOM (Soil Organic Matter), one acre of land will hold an ADDITIONAL ???20,000???++ gallons of water.”

Might the whole idea of “knowing” the percentage of carbon in a soil be a game, a feeble attempt at grasping infinity/ A reductionist, world-as-machine worldview, a linear take on a dynamic, continuum of where the carbon, and hence, the water, gets stored? What part is counted, included, excluded: organic matter, humus, duff, humic acid, fulvic acid, biochar in the soil,…?

While you’re at it, a good excercise might be to try to define, or at least fathom, where a catchment, watershed, begins and ends!

(I know for example how water and organics (organic matter) can physically flow into a prairie dog burrow, tunnel. Bill Mollison had some illuminating and fascinating stuff to say about the prarie dogs, ?marmot?, including of its whistling. [BIBLIO: I have flagged this (Bill Mollison x gophers/prairie dogs) and rain checked it to search for those bibliographic sources. Let me know if you have any]

One BIBLIO that i do have about prairie dog ecologies and their mistreatment, poisoning, follows: “In Defense of Prairie Dogs” feat. Deanna Meyer Episode 2 of the Voices for Nature & Peace Podcast https://radiofreesunroot.com/2020/04/13/ep-2-in-defense-of-prairie-dogs-feat-deanna-meyer/

• regenerative disturbance. Small scale. Disturbance which benefits others; has cascading effects, benefits, functions (so both the living and abiotic factors can improve and tighten relationships: like allowing water to flow down into Earth (slow it. spread it, sink it, store it).

++ If anybody wants to put in their 2 sats worth on this (How much more water each increase in % SOM provides.) to give it some more accuracy, specificity, refrences. Ideally the quote. : : : : : : :

I remember a German children’s book with beautiful drawings about the “Maulwurf” (mole) and, amoung other elements in the story, how the farmer was fighiting against the mole. Another example about (up to a point at least) how waging war on all these animals, “pests”, weeds, germs, terrorists (certain kinds anyways),… and all manner of life, is a losing strategy. : : : : : : :

I cannot imagine how much effort it would take me to tunnel and make such below-ground earthworks, terraforming, with my paws! I was surprised to find some fascinating details in my question to Maple AI (Llama 3.3) about the prairie dog x stormwater nexus:

“What is the difference between a vole and a mole? And, for the one that lives lots underground, in the soil, do they make any kind of positive, regenerative disturbance as far as stormwater, infiltration and the general catchment or watershed health?” : : : : : : :

You can unofficially add or imagine the above mole vignette into the very well crafted animation series i would call your attention to if you have not already been introduced to it whose theme is a more ample take on the water cycle, rather cycles, and how we can take them along degenerative or regenerative paths. The animation trilogy is brilliant, introductory (yet much richer and varied, than most representations or explanations of water science/cycles) and inspiring about the various states of water cyles and the catchment or watershed health. Notice what gets emphasized in the two words catchment and watershed. The animations were organized and are hosted by WaterStories and i believe the animator is an Argentinian.

The first of the trilogy looks at a healthy-ideal water picture, while the next, ‘The Watershed Death Spiral’ depicts what happens when the landscape and ecosystem take a degenerative, downward spiral. The last one shows what is possible in flipping the problem (the problem is the solution), in doing a regenerative reboot. There are plenty of examples of this throughout the world and time in case some think this is just a imaginary dream design excercise manifest as this animation. When one also considers the (at least) 64 anomolies of water (as in its properties or behaviour), it makes for a much richer, non-meaningless, complex, quest to be part of and try to comprehend the engima of water.

1.) The Full Water Cycle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIZeKtMZNU

2.) The Watershed Death Spiral https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4l8QrsMmnI

3.) The Revived Water Cycle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTnh7eTXD1M