Most of what goes wrong on a piece of land, such as drought, flooding, eroding soil, or a spring that used to run and now doesn't, traces back to water that leaves too fast. In summer 2026, we began a multi-year project to improve how water moves across the farm, working with a specialist on that exact problem. This is the first entry in a long record of the work.
What a Healthy Water Cycle Does
Think of land as a sponge. When the ground is covered, rooted, and full of organic matter, rain soaks in and moves slowly downhill underground, feeding springs and plants long after the storm. When the ground is bare or compacted, rain sheets off the surface and carries soil with it. That's how the same piece of land can flood in spring and run dry by late summer.
Water cycle restoration works on that difference. It spreads many small features across the land, such as ponds, terraces, swales, and shaped ground, so water slows down and sinks in close to where it falls. Each one holds a little. Together, they keep more of every storm on the land.
What We're Building, and With Whom
We are doing this work with Zach Weiss of Elemental Ecosystems and Water Stories, who restores the water cycle on landscapes around the world. Zach is the first person to earn the Holzer Practitioner certification directly from the Austrian land designer Sepp Holzer, and he has revived dry riverbeds and built water-retention landscapes in more than two dozen countries. His method is to read a landscape and work with its own water and momentum rather than against it — the same conviction that guides everything here.
Zach's process starts with reading the land before anyone digs. Here, that meant starting on the high ground, where an existing pond, fed by a spring and runoff, sits at the top of the property. Water held near the top of a slope can soak into the ground below it, so that's where the series begins. From there, we shaped ponds along the natural grade.
We build each pond as a set of working parts: a deep key that anchors the dam into the ground, an earthen dam built from soil dug on site, a spillway that lets overflow leave safely, and shaped slopes and terraces along the edges. Each part has a job. Together, they hold water on the land and let it recharge slowly into the ground.
Nothing on this project goes to waste. The soil we move becomes the dams, berms, and planted edges. Downed trees and stumps go back in and around the water as habitat. Smaller wood is chipped into mulch, and larger logs are buried under soil to form hügelkultur mounds, which create rich soil as the wood breaks down and hold moisture long after a storm. Nothing is trucked in, and nothing is trucked out.
What We Expect to See
It's early. The first ponds are only now taking shape, and the most important results will come on the land's schedule. The ponds will fill with rain and snowmelt over time. The earthen dams protect against erosion and runoff while providing stability.
The work is designed to produce specific changes, and those are what we'll watch for: more water held in the ground, springs that run steadier through summer, pastures and forest that handle dry spells better, and new habitat that didn't exist here before, with open water, planted edges, and the amphibians, insects, birds, and plants that follow water.
We'll document what fills, what holds, and what returns.
What We Are Learning
The biggest lesson so far is that this work starts with watching, and you can do the same on any piece of ground, from a backyard to a pasture. Go out during a heavy rain and follow the water: where it arrives, where it pools, and where it runs off fast and muddy. That last spot is where slowing water down will do the most good. We'll keep adding to this record as the ponds go in, season by season.
If this is work you want to understand more deeply — or take up on your own land — Zach’s Water Stories platform teaches the methods directly. We’ll share milestones as we reach them through Field Notes.
Sources
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Ionescu, A. "Building Water Back Into the Landscape: A Week With Water Stories." Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (Bio4Climate). August 2026. Read article.
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Water Stories. Visit website.
