u/Hellion102792

Wondering if anyone can help with tonight's strange discovery. I have a series of 4x4 raised beds that I grow hot peppers in. Picture 1 is from 7/22 and largely how the bed looked last evening when I checked it. Picture 2 and 3 show what I found tonight; a compacted pile about 6-8" deep of the same dry, dead dirt found all around my yard. I cautiously poked through it with a stick and grabbed my shovel after determining nothing was living in it. This is what's strange to me...No bugs, no obvious traces of animal, and under this mound was the regular soil from my bed completely undisturbed. The plants next to it aren't eaten or anything. And if anything the pileup actually pushed them totally upright. The dirt filled a little more than half of a HD bucket.

I remembered something with this bed earlier this year and went back to find pics 4 and 5 which show the condition I found the bed in back in April when I went to go prep. Same edge and everything. We had a major blizzard in Feb that completely eclipsed all of the beds, wraparounds and stakes so the rabbits were hopping around on top of all this. I could tell from the sunken-in snow and piles of poop that rabbits had fallen into both this bed and another but climbed out, I assumed then that it had tried to tunnel out from below. Again, when I went to turn the dirt I found nothing out of the ordinary. No burrows or voids and I didn't find any signs of life then or at any point until today's weird discovery.

Few more points:

• Located in RI, USA so we have the usual New England fauna.
• We have squirrels that sometimes come in the yard, but I've thoroughly traumatized them with various hot pepper guts rubbed all over the things they like. They generally walk the fence or dig a bit under the tree in the back of the yard and then head out.
• I see a groundhog exactly once a year. This year not since March and there aren't any obvious signs of it living or tunneling around the yard.
• We have rabbits that usually live under my shed early in the spring and have made baby burrows in the grass before. But this doesn't seem like a burrow, just a sudden accumulation of dirt from elsewhere. Haven't seen rabbits in a couple of months.
• The city as a whole has a bit of a rat problem but the neighborhood has a ton of cats, a few owls and I meticulously inspect the yard for tunnels. Only twice have I seen a rat (both obviously dying from poison) in the yard and not for years.
• I walked the whole yard and can't find hole or anywhere that this dirt could've been moved from.
• Various small ant nests exist around the yard but I didn't find any ants, wasps or other ground insects while sifting through the dirt.

I think I'm going to set up my trail camera tonight. Hoping someone may have some insight. Thanks in advance!