Sustainability On Six

Sustainability On Six Subhead Tolman’s The SILO On Six project opens gates to public in soft opening, holds evening Diner En Blanc fundraiser Simone Wed, 05/22/2024 - 06:12 Image

• Visitors arrive to enjoy usng the dog walk, partake in some pizza lunch, visit vendors and view future projects during the Silo on Six Project soft opening on Saturday, May 11. Simone Wichers-Voss | Chisholm Country magazine
• Environmental scientist Dr. Deb Tolman fires up the wood-fired oven for the pizza lunch during her Silo on Six Project soft opening May 11. Simone Wichers-Voss | Chisholm Country magazine

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Environmental Science studies the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance. This ecological balance translates into sustainability – the potential ability to maintain itself. Since 2011, Environmental Scientist Dr. Deb Tolman has been a frontline warrior for a sustainable life and educating people about sustainability.

After three years of preparations, her newest, multi-facetted project SILO on Six project saw its soft opening Sat. May 11. with the public free to wander the 12-acre lot off Highway 6, just south of Clifton, to see the location, the many projects in progress and to hear the scope of ideas for the area. The day ended with a Diner En Blanc fundraiser in one of the newly developed areas.

The Project Silo on Six is a Community Recreation District, which in this case includes all things sustainable. In her own vision, creative Tolman plans on giving the community a park, with the slogan “sustainability connecting people to plants to pets to professions,” adding practical uses benefitting the community and environment alike.

SILO is the acronym for Sustainable Information and Learning Opportunities.

“The goal of the SILO Project is to help launch for-profit businesses with a sustainable element, provide healthy relationships between the outdoors and people, and to have fun in the process,” Tolman says on her website. “People need nature; our food, our water, our health, and our jobs all rely on the health of the planet’s ecosystems.”

With that in mind, there are already a retail shop, a gathering place/amphitheater with a stage; a park with a circumventing dog walk with rest benches, a restroom facility, key hole gardens, wild flower fields, a bug hotel and so much more. Bee hives are already in place, with the bees busy harvesting pollen from the spring blooms to start their 2024 honey production. That honey will be sold on site during market days.

With all her projects, Tolman aims to collaborate with different partners, utilizing their different areas of expertise. Thomas Ellis of the Small Business Development Center in Waco and Joshua Palmer of Joshua Palmer Eco Solutions are two of those partners who understand and share Tolman’s vision for the project and are hands on, and invaluable to the further development of the property. Besides practical help with welding and doing electrical work, they are problem solvers and educators.

On Saturday, there were all sorts of outdoor activities to enjoy, like throwing horse shoes and corn hole, a walk along Pete’s Path, visit with the vendors that included the Clifton Farmers Market, enjoy wood-fired pizza, some coffee drinks from The Grind and enjoy the wild flowers. Ellis was on hand with his Waco Axe Throwing cage, for some fun activity. And Palmer offered a mead tasting in the Java Shack.

Initiator and co-coordinator of the Clifton Farmers Market, Tolman is adding a farm market day at the Silo on Six location on Wednesdays from 10 – noon, starting May 22. The present farmers market will continue selling its wares at the Legacy Park location in Clifton on Saturdays.

The property’s composting berms serve four important purposes – besides being composting mounds for additional planting, they serve as sound barriers for Highway 6, a wild life habitat, and wildlife corridors A circular area shows the contours of the future garden center, which will offer native plants suited to Texas’ nature conditions. An educational element display in the garden center will demonstrate how these plants can be designed for any landscape or yard.

Able to supply the garden center with some of its plants and the year-round farmers market will be the underground green house, designed after Michael Reynolds’ Earthships. For Tolman this is one of the most important projects to finish, since it aids to increase the length of the planting season for the farmer’s market participants.

Other future projects include an educational facility in collaboration with Mc-Lennan Community College called “The Incubator,” that will provide free classes on starting and sustaining a small business. Bosque County Recycling collects #1 and 2 plastics. For all other plastics, Tolman envisions another important project -- the Plastic Recycle Bus.

In partnership with Joshua Palmer Eco Solutions Consulting and McLennan Community College’s Thomas Ellis for Small Businesses, Rappaport Academy and Triple Win of Waco, low energy, tiny homes on trailers and will be rented out until they are purchased and rolled off the lot. A portion of the property’s north side will be dedicated to a pet cemetery. Another concept is a half dome meditation center complete with trickling water providing and extra feeling of serenity in nature, built from bottles and reusing one of the circular concrete horse troughs on the property. Tolman sees a partnership with Baylor students for this one Tolman who holds Ph.D.s in Environmental Sciences/Resources and Geography, and with over thirty years of experience in academic research and landscape design, has training in plant nutrition, economics, and environmental education.

It takes a village to raise a child, in this case, the SILO on Six is Tolman’s child, and without the help of many, many volunteers and supporters, the special facility would not grow and evolve.

“It takes a village,” Tolman said, who is immensely pleased with the amount of positive feedback, support and assistance she has already received from the community. “And it will evolve organically as time goes on It might take a few more years, but the lot has already steadily transformed and evolved in the past three years.