Locals watched the changes at Berlin Orchards with sadness - severed apple trees piling up along the road, closing signs at the store, and perhaps most telling, a sign in the middle of a former orchard offering house lots for sale. To many, the loss felt personal; people had been bringing their families to pick apples and browse the gourmet store shelves for years. Last November, auctioneers sold off the goods - office desks and beehives and kitchen equipment - and surely that was the swan song of the 20-year-old business.

But the farm is proving to be the little orchard that could, and this year people will be able to pick apples and ride ponies and buy pumpkins after all.

"Berlin Orchards will be around for quite some time," Gerard Beirne said.

Beirne was the orchard manager for 12 years before former owner Barry O'Brien decided to close his business. At first, it appeared Beirne would be out of a job, but before O'Brien's death last March, he donated 35 acres of the orchard to the Trivium School in Lancaster. The school is leasing that land back to Beirne, who will continue to grow apples.

That part of the orchard is conservation land and thus cannot be sold for development, Beirne said, so with that, and his 20-year lease, he's confident another generation of apple pickers will be wandering his orchard.

"Farming is a way of life," Beirne said. "I've always enjoyed farming. My whole life I've been farming in one form or another. ... I would have continued to work here if it hadn't sold. If Mr. O'Brien had decided to keep the farm I would have continued farming for him."

Beirne is growing about 16 varieties of apples, including paula reds and ginger golds, macintosh, galas and courtlands. Picking began last weekend and Beirne said expects the season to last through the end of October, since he has some late-season apples as well. He will also be doing pony rides and selling pumpkins, gourds and fall mums.

"I'm very excited about this season," Beirne said. "I enjoy meeting the customers and getting them in the haywagon. ... In the fall we can be hectic but it's a lot of fun. I have a great job, I always said that, and I always enjoyed the customers. That's another reason I wanted to continue the farm."

Beirne does landscaping as well as his maintaining the orchard, and he said though he's now responsible for the orchard, it really hasn't changed how he will farm it.

"When I was farming for Mr. O'Brien, I treated the orchard as it was my own," Beirne said. "Now I'm the one who has to balance the books. That's the big difference."

While the orchard and the store were formerly part of the same business, they are now two separate entities. Beirne has retained the name "Berlin Orchards" while Jennifer Cermak, owner of the store, is doing business as "Berlin Farms."

The first thing to reopen was the ice cream stand in July and the first weekend, Cermak hosted a blueberry bakeoff.

"That's gotten a real good response," she said. "The bakery is open, too. We just hired a chef from the Culinary Institute of America. We use a lot of our own products and people want home-cooked food."

Some of the activities planned for the fall are pony rides, the great pumpkin patch, face painting and apple tasting.

"A lot of people, when they go to get apples, they have favorites but they're not sure what they are," she said. "Or they don't realize different apples have a different taste. This way, they can taste a slice and see what appeals to them."

The farm is now the home to several endangered barnyard animals, including friesian and percheron horses and royal palm turkeys.

There are also a variety of endangered chickens and alpacas and baby doll sheep.

"We will have a pardoning of the turkeys in November," Cermak said.

"The whole orchard was removed, so this is the first return to agriculture," Cermak said. "We're really working more towards reestablishing the property more than anything else. We spend a lot of time taking care of animals."

Although the business is finding a new way for itself, the transformation is bittersweet. The farm originally held more than 200 acres and some of the land on Route 62 has already been sold for house lots.

"We put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into these fields, but things change," Beirne said.

Both the farm and the orchard will be open on the weekends. Berlin Orchards is located at 200 Central St., Route 62, in Berlin. Call 978-838-2400 for more information.