The holidays are upon us, and in the town of Kellogg, Minnesota, you’ll find a toy store unlike any other: LARK Toys.

“They are getting into everything, but that’s good because it’s a toy store!” said Katelyn Key, a LARK customer shopping with her kids.

And no better place to get into things than a store of such massive size.

“We fill about 20,000-square-feet plus with the best toys that we can find,” said Miranda Gray-Burlingame.

She and her family are the proud owners of LARK Toys. The original owners, the Kreofskys, opened the store in 1983 and named it “Lost Arts Revival by Kreofsky,” or LARK for short.  

“‘Lark’ also means a carefree, whimsical adventure,” said Gray-Burlingame.  

And that’s what they aim for. Part of this is a museum, and a trip down “Memory Lane” reveals toys that are nearly a century old. There’s even a Gen X Star Wars corner. 

“An 8-year-old John Lauritsen would have loved this section right here. These are vintage toys from the ’80s,” Lauritsen said.

“The Rancor is probably the most celebrated, but all of them have been played with for many, many, many hours,” said Gray-Burlingame.

From the toy store to the bookstore, which has a vast selection — but it’s not quite as it seems. One of the book shelves is actually a secret door that leads into a gathering space designed for celebrations.

“It’s for music, for meetings, for dancing,” she said.  

What makes LARK truly stand out is its hand-made selection, and that’s where Tim Monson comes into play. He’s been doing this for a long time.

“It’s coming up on 40 years. I do all the maintenance, the woodworking, build all the displays,” said Monson, LARK shop manager.

He creates letter blocks, pull toys and puzzles. Monson is a one-man Santa workshop, and there’s pride in knowing customers buy thousands of his hand-crafted toys each year.

“And that’s a uniqueness you can’t find anymore, so pretty proud of that,” said Monson.

There’s the sound of his bandsaw, and then there’s the sound of a carousel. Every half hour, fish, ostriches and giraffes with monkeys spin around the store.

Just like the hand-carved toys you find at LARK, it also houses a carousel featuring animals hand-carved from basswood. But this ride proves you’re never too old to be a kid.

“For little kids and all the way up to folks who are over 100, we have a wall of photos back there of people who are over 90. When they come, they get a free ride and a certificate that says they’re ‘forever young,’” said Gray-Burlingame.

It’s a different kind of toy story, a place that’s hoping to build happiness one playset at a time.  

“We know that everybody loves their kids and wants a better world for them, and watching them enjoy their kids, it’s just great,” said owner Kathy Gray.

“We are really, really lucky to be in the business of playing,” said Gray-Burlingame. “We hope that LARK has a very long, long, fun future.”

LARK also has mini golf when the weather cooperates. They are open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, but are only open on the weekends during January and February.

Here in Minnesota, scientists say we are sitting on a climate change superhero.

Peatlands, a type of wetland, cover more than 10% of the state — that’s the most of any in the lower 48. But over time, peatlands have been misunderstood and mistreated. Now some are trying to change that.

“You might feel like we’ve jumped into a Dr. Suess novel,” said Mark Felice, a peatland scientist with The Nature Conservancy.

At the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in East Bethel, truffle top black spruces, cotton grass puffs, colorful mosses and carnivorous plants fill in where glacial lakes retreated.

“It’s just like a whole little world,” said Eric Seabloom, interim director of Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.

Except in this world each step squishes shaking the ground around it.

“It feels like walking on a water bed,” said Felice.

Scientists say the moss-carpeted wetland is pure magic.

“Peatlands are basically areas where as plants die they fall on the ground and then slowly decompose like your compost pile,” said Seabloom.

When that happens, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and stores it in the soil.

“So slowly little by little, layer by layer, we’ve built up the soil we’re standing on,” said Felice.

And while peatlands occupy just 3% of Earth’s land surface, scientists say they store about 30% of the planet’s land-based carbon. That’s more than double held by the world’s forests, according to the Nature Conservancy.

To capture their power, Felice brings along his portable greenhouse gas analyzer, which he says reminds him of R2D2 from “Star Wars.” He also carries with him laser sensors that detect methane and carbon dioxide emissions.

“Peat soil can hold about 20 times its weight in water,” said Felice

It acts like a sponge for both carbon and water, and can provide flood protection and water filtration.

“They’re sort of a hidden treasure that we don’t really think about,” said Seabloom. “Now we can understand better how these are really important, huge stores of carbon. We definitely need them.”

But over time scientists say peatlands have been misunderstood, drained for development or agriculture and scientists are now learning why that was a mistake and how we can fix it.

“People always thought of peatlands or wetlands as sort of a menace to society or something in the way to be drained away,” said Chris Lenhart, a restorationist at The Nature Conservancy. “We’re right along Cedar Creek here. This is the part that’s been straightened about 100 to 120 years ago.”

The Nature Conservancy says up to one sixth of Minnesota’s peatlands were drained in the early 20th century. 

The soil of a drained peatland looks a lot like dirt.

“It’s breaking down the organic matter and releasing the carbon dioxide as opposed to holding it in place,” said Lenhart.

To fix it, restoration teams will take a straightened section of the stream and rewiggle it to it’s original form. 

Restoring the stream to its original form slows the water, raises the levels, and rewets the peat soils on the shores, emitting less carbon dioxide and accumulating valuable peat once again.

The Nature Conservancy says restoring and rewetting farmed and partially-drained peatlands in Minnesota could cut roughly 6.36 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, which is like getting rid of nearly 1.5 million gas powered cars for a year. 

“We can have a lot of impact by managing and taking care of a pretty small blueprint,” said Felice.

“Even around the world people know about Minnesota I’d say for peatland and wetland science and protection,” said Lenhart.

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve is owned by the University of Minnesota. It’s an area with many active research studies and restoration projects. It’s also known nationally for its research.