Many print newspapers across America have been forced to close. Many small businesses have gone out of business in recent years. These sad events are very hard on the people who are affected by these economic realities. The small businesses are unable to provide the customer service that their companies were created to provide.
Jack Scible created a small business in 1954 that has survived for over 60 years. He still gets up at the crack of dawn and puts on his Y Worry Farm hat, green John Deere jacket, and his farm gear to survey the farm that has been his life for over half a century.
“Fools like to see their faces in public places,” his one of his favorite sayings. He will most likely close his eyes when a camera appears in front of him. He does not seek publicity or self-promotion and he does not like big city life or bright lights. Jack is an honest, hardworking, small businessman and small family farm owner.
Life was not easy when he and his wife started the Y Worry Farm in 1954. In fact, the very name of the farm comes from the tough first years. His wife looked at the revenue the small farm was bringing in and she wondered how they would survive. But her husband was a determined man and he refused to give up on his dream. He told his wife that God would provide and he asked her, “Y Worry,” and over 50 years later the small family farm still exists today.
A farmer is a small business man. “We are grain farmers, hay farmers, wheat and soy bean farmers. I consider myself to be a small business man. We are working 500 acres in the neighborhood. The Y Worry Farm has 26 acres and the remaining land is rented out,” Scible said.
But wait. The land that the farm sits on is very valuable. It is precious Maryland soil and it rests on prime real estate. Developers are always looking for great locations to build shopping malls, and parking lots, and salt domes. And in 1959 a large piece of the Y Worry Farm was taken by the government and leased back to the owner. He has farmed that land and created the world famous Y Worry Farm Pumpkin Patch.
Now thousands of happy customers have been given excellent customer service and great pumpkins at the Y Worry Farm Pumpkin Patch for over two decades. Fathers, mothers, and children have played in the corn maze, and watched the farm animals roam about the farm. And purchased those big, beautiful, well priced pumpkins. The Maryland Department of Agriculture has hosted an Education Day at the farm every year for the past three years to teach parents and children about the importance of farm life and farm living.
Yet, if the government takes the land where the pumpkin patch is now located the customers who flock to the Y Worry Farm will lose a place that has brought joy, happiness, and pumpkins to so many for so long. In many ways Jack is part of a legacy that is over 378 years old. Why 378 years? Because that is how old the first American small family farm was when the owners were forced to sell it.
The amount of work involved in maintaining a 26 acre farm the size of the Y Worry Farm is great. Farming requires getting up at dawn to feed the livestock and then a long day of tending fields until dusk. But Scible sees the life that he chose for his wife and son as a continuation of the life his father gave to him. “I was born and raised in Davidsonville. Years ago this was all farm land. Now it is 50-50. Dairy farms and tobacco farms were a big thing in this area. Now you won’t find either one in Davidsonville. They are both gone, It is a dying thing, “Scible said.
When you were born on a university campus, attended elementary school in the shadow of the largest concrete jungle in the world and worked in a shopping mall as your first social security paying job in the 60’s., and graduated from high school in the capitol city: without a doubt, there comes a great appreciation for green spaces, farm animals and farm life. The Y Worry Farm is a place to go and to remember the life of a grandfather farmer who worked his farm and took care of his children in 1920. The Y Worry Farm is that place, that memory, and that type of grandfather. Jack Scible is part of that American legacy. A humble man who would not say these things about himself; however in his case these things are true.
Y Worry Farm is owned by Jack Scible and is now farmed by his sons Mark Scible and David Scible. The brothers are assisted by their cousin Pete Wagner and Mark Scible’s wife Betsy and their son Mark, Jr. “My father started this farm back in 1954, I have been renting it and working it since 1972,” Mark Scible, Sr., said. My father is retired now, but he still helps me out on the farm,” he said. After over half a century Jack still helps out on the farm he loves and the Y Worry Farm Pumpkin Patch is loved by many.
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