Farm life is just what the doctor ordered

A beloved Berlin farm store is on track to reopen this fall under the ownership of a fourth-generation farmer who also happens to be a pathologist and dog handler.

When Dr. Jennifer Cermak visited the former Berlin Orchards last February, she saw a chance to fulfill her latest dream: a return to her roots.

``I fell in love with this place in the dead of winter," said Cermak, decked out in jeans and knee-high rubber boots as she walked toward her brood of chirping turkeys. ``I'm just moving back toward my old home life."

Cermak, 34, bought a portion of the property and rechristened it Berlin Farms. Over the summer, she reopened the ice cream stand. In a few weeks, she plans to reopen the bakery/cafe and later this fall, the farm store. ``We're getting there," Cermak said. ``It's a lot of elbow grease."

And ambition, which she has in bushels. A graduate of Boston University Medical School who did her fellowship in pathology at Harvard, Cermak works full time as a director at a Cambridge biopharmaceutical company.

And on the side, she runs a business arranging luxury retreats and social events for dogs.

Berlin Orchards closed last fall after owner Barry O'Brien got fed up with local officials, saying they tied up his expansion plans in a thicket of red tape.

Over 20 years, O'Brien had turned his 200-acre-plus operation into the town's third-largest taxpayer, behind Solomon Pond Mall and Sears. He raised 22 apple varieties in his orchard; renovated the 2,000-square-foot barn into a gourmet farm store; and established a popular ice cream stand and restaurant.

After O'Brien died from lymphoma eight days shy of his 73 d birthday in March, his estate was broken up.

More than 100 acres were donated to the Trivium School, a Catholic institution in Lancaster, and several parcels were sold for house lots.

Cermak bought 24 acres for $850,000 in May, according to the Worcester County Registry of Deeds.

It's land rich in history. John Bruce farmed it starting in 1770, according to town historian Barry Eager. The ice cream stand is in the house that Bruce built.

In the 1800s, his descendants added the barn that later became the farm store and the white shingle house that Cermak is restoring to live in part of the year.

She's also restoring the various berry patches on the property. She says she already has planted 4,000 strawberry bushes.

The fruit will be sold in the store, along with produce from local farms, as well as maple syrup, honey, cider, jams, doughnuts, and herbs, she said.

Cermak also is assembling a menagerie of rare animals. So far she has a pair each of alpacas and babydoll lambs; 11 Royal Palm turkeys; 40 Silkie chickens; and two horses: a Friesian named Quincy and a Percheron named Jack.

On a recent afternoon, 2-year-old Drew Murphy of Stow was mesmerized by the Silkies when she had a chance to walk into the coop and hold an orange one in her arms. The former orchard was the toddler's favorite place to visit, said her mother, Danielle Gregorie .

``Since she was born we used to come here a couple of times a week to see the animals," said Gregorie, a Hudson native who frequented Berlin Orchards as a child.

``We are so happy to see this re opened. . . . We thought it was going to be knocked down."

Cermak inherited both her love of farming and entrepreneurial spirit from her parents.

She spent part of her childhood on a farm in Germantown, Md. Her parents, Janet and Milo Cermak, in 1969 founded one of the first data storage companies, Verbatim Datalife.

Along with Berlin Farms, Cermak plans to continue operating Yankee Dog Retreat, which sends dogs on luxury spa excursions and choreographs canine weddings and birthday parties.

She owns a pair of champion Weimaraners and is the author of ``The Home Spa Book for Dogs," about canine health and grooming.

Cermak lives in a 1760 Colonial in North Reading that she restored with her fiance, Patrick O'Rourke, an assistant vice president at John Hancock.

She already has enlisted O'Rourke in rebuilding Berlin Farms.

``I just want to help Jennifer realize her dreams. It's just such a beautiful property," he said. ``We want to make this place a destination."