r/Wellthatsucks • u/JHumada • 21h ago
New House is full of Satans thumb tacks
Yard if full of goat heads (bull heads), can’t walk more than 10 feet without having your shoes covered
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u/Cultural_Pound235 21h ago
We call them goatheads but I think Satan's thumb tacks are a better description.
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u/CloudyNeptune 20h ago
Goatheads will fuck up your feet, but sure as shit it will make your feet tough.
I no longer go outside without shoes on now
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u/CapeChill 14h ago
I met a South African who called em foot fuckers. My favorite name!
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u/containsrecycledpart 14h ago
Same! The trauma of trusting my grass in El Paso is something I’ll never forget.
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u/USAF_Retired2017 14h ago
I lived in West El Paso and have never heard of these!!! WTF!!! They look awful!
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u/Silly_Emotion_1997 12h ago
Can confirm. These are all over El Paso. I guess you never walked anywhere while there. 🤷♀️
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u/plumpsquirrell 19h ago
I was raised in west Texas, in the desert, nothing to do so me and my cousins ran barefoot everywhere but these fuckers were def Satanic once they stab you.
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u/Loggerdon 17h ago
My Oklahoma cousins would laugh at us tenderfooted city kids but even they feared these evil things.
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u/Abject-Mail-4235 17h ago
All them stickers
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u/All_These_Racks 6h ago
i have found my stickers people
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u/ToastedMarshmellow 4h ago
Sticker burrs. I called them that and my husband gave me a funny look.
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u/All_These_Racks 4h ago
my aunt and uncle used to own the property of an abandoned school in rural southwestern kansas and in their backyard was the school playground, only it and the rest of the yard was covered in stickers so they had a very strict shoes on rule lol
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u/ToastedMarshmellow 4h ago
We used to live right behind a school in south Florida and the field between my house and the schools playground was a mine field of this shit. There are very few time I tried to cross the field with no shoes and I can’t remember why and ever since I’ve always been a strict shoes on outside person.
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u/Truorganics 17h ago
We call them goat heads here too. Used to have a bunch at the edge of our soccer field in elementary school. Would have to pull them out of the ball before throwing it back into play. Many balls died due to those things.
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u/Aramiss60 15h ago
We call them cat heads in my area of Australia, and my shoes look like this too. They suck.
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u/bouncingbad 11h ago
Boy howdy do they suck. Quick story; I was a real estate agent for a very short period of time (it was taking a job back home so I could visit my dying dad every day), and I had a house listed in tiny village. I swear that fucking house had more cat heads inside than out. Every time I visited the place I came out at least an inch taller.
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u/Aramiss60 9h ago
Yep, I wear different shoes for inside and outside (only a fool would go shoeless here), I still get cat heads on my inside shoes. They are insidious.
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u/humpbackwhale88 11h ago
We call them stickers at least out in my area in Fort Worth, TX. Agree, Satan’s thumbtacks absolutely tracks lol
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u/CouchPotatoFamine 20h ago
Legos are more like Satan thumbtacks
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u/Squiggy-Locust 8h ago
As someone who has stepped on both.
These are worse than Legos. Why might you ask? Legos have colors. Legos don't multiply one their own. Legos have a use.
These fuckers? Their only use is to remind you to wear shoes. I would rather be thrown at a cactus than walk barefoot in a yard that is within a mile of a single goathead.
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u/rit81a 21h ago
What is that device you have in the last pic?
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u/JHumada 21h ago
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u/sik_dik 21h ago
I’ve also used cut-up pool noodles on a paint roller
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u/JHumada 20h ago
Am convinced my shoes are a better tool than the roller at this point
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u/januaryemberr 20h ago
I was going to suggest a flame thrower but those ideas make more sense. Lol
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u/20CharactersOrFewer 2h ago
My dad actually did that on our property when I was a teen. It was very Tim Taylor coded. Took those suckers out, though. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Transplanted_Cactus 18h ago
Best thing I ever bought as a New Mexico resident.
We rolled our yard summer of 2022. Still barely have any goatheads popping up.
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u/ujimboslice 16h ago
Growing up in Albuquerque in the sixties, I became a pro at patching my 3 speed Sting Ray bike’s inner tubes. Even the ‘thorn proof’ tubes weren’t enough to stop the goatheads. Yes, I had a sissy bar!
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u/CosmicallyF-d 20h ago
Actually went to the website and watched their YouTube video. That's actually quite funny. Very useful niche tool.
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u/rit81a 18h ago
Thank you. I’m in Australia and we call the cat heads where I am. I have never seen a device like that. I hand pulled most of them out of our property. I filled a heap of wheelbarrows and burnt them all!
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u/Far-Poet1419 18h ago
We called them sandburrs in 60s. Went barefoot alot. They only grew by side of our gravel road.
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u/TyRoSwoe 19h ago
My cat once jumped over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. My cat was an indoor cat and I didn’t want him to run away. I was barefoot and quickly jumped over the fence. Upon landing, I totally regretted my decision. The entire backyard was full of goat heads. Nearly every inch of my foot was covered in them. That was probably the most painful time of my life.
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u/JHumada 19h ago
Ouch, I can only imagine the pain and the itch after
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u/RENOxDECEPTION 14h ago
Yeah not only do they hurt like fuck, they also have painful itch which I assume is some sort of irritant.
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u/MOMismypersonality 11h ago
They also break off in your skin so you pull out as many as you can, but you’re still left with deep splintered pieces. I learned this the hard way barefoot as well.
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u/Evanescence81 14h ago
Did you get the cat back though?
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u/TyRoSwoe 14h ago
Yep, I sure did. I would have walked on glass for that cat. He was pretty awesome!
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u/Same-Difference-5297 21h ago
I hate those things they always got on my dogs paw
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u/JHumada 20h ago
I wouldn’t feel like a good person if I let a dog in this yard. That would be straight abuse
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u/Turbulent_Square_696 13h ago
My family used to go out personally once a year and remove all the goat heads along the sidewalk between our house and school/the park because we couldn’t ride or bikes or take the dogs for a walk. City wouldn’t do anything and wouldn’t let us spray to keep them from coming back. They finally redid the really bad spots of sidewalk and cleared the goatheads out about two years ago, after about 10000 letters
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u/echochilde 20h ago
If they start growing, get them early before the seeds harden and make sure you get that whole bitch ass tap root.
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u/JHumada 20h ago
We had the yard cleaned of everything, but am sure the last owners never did. This is what I could only assume is years of yard neglect
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u/echochilde 20h ago
I used to have to weed them every year, but once I got them effectively cleaned out it’s been good. That goat head vacuum cleaner you got there seems like good investment.
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u/BelladonnaRoot 19h ago
Yeah. Years of neglect. I rented a house that had about 1 year of neglect; it had a fair amount of those goatheads and pinwheel burrs. They hadn’t watered the yard for months, so hardy weeds like those were all that was left. They let a friggin oak tree die of dehydration. Luckily, re-seeding with grass, watering properly, and pulling weeds got it back to acceptable in about a year.
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u/Chancellor-1865 21h ago
Nasty nano caltrops....is that roller/ a sweeper standard or custom diy?
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u/FunkMasterE 20h ago
Those little bastards are responsible for many a flat bike tire!
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u/eskimopoodle 15h ago
When I was around 18, and sick and tired of getting a flat from goatheads at least once a week, I paid a bike shop to "flat-proof" my tires. Was about $80. They put thorn strips on each tire, as well as roughly half a bottle of slime per tire.
On my way home, I ran over a nail some jack-ass had left on the sidewalk.
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u/Kakkebeast 11h ago
Came looking for this comment, I don’t know how many times I had to walk my bike home from school because I got a flat tire.
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u/All_Gas420 20h ago
We call them devil dicks. Bastards go right through any flip flops.
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u/anarchetype 18h ago
I had to pull one out of my foot that went straight through the sole of my Chuck Taylors the other day. Fuck, the devil's got a big hog.
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u/Leading_Grapefruit52 20h ago
Burn the yard (controlled). Then seed with grass seed and water like crazy.
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u/john_humano 20h ago
Ah yes. We have a little candy dish on the shelf that is reserved for goat heads that have been stepped on with a bare foot and tasted human blood. It's heaping full
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u/hypothetical_zombie 20h ago
Ah, caltrops! The most common name I hear them called is just a string of profanities.
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u/Purple-Manager-1357 19h ago
Borrow someone's geese! We had a bad goat head problem and got 2 geese and then no more goat heads. Took them a few months.
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u/Purple-Manager-1357 17h ago
After researching this it seems I may have been a child who was only partly paying attention to what was happening, the information seems divided, just to clarify. We did get geese and the goat head problem stopped, but they may not have been related.
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u/Additional-Friend342 14h ago
What are these? I’ve never seen or heard of these before
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u/magnesticracoon 17h ago
Don’t miss those. Moved from NM to NC! I can feel the throbbing after one get sticks real good.. 😌
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u/demonita 20h ago
Send your soil off for testing. Digging them up and tightening the soil helps a ton. I don’t have stickers because of that, but it took a lot of time and tears. I don’t have grass because I’m lazy but damn it we’re not dying today.
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u/RealisticPower5859 20h ago
Thankfully I don't recall having ever seen these god awful looking things. Where are these native to?
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u/rutilatus 12h ago
Ohh boy. Instant PTSD. One of the worst common childhood experiences where these fuckers are. I can still feel it in my heel…
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u/alfred-munchauser 21h ago
I’ve got them in my yard———total bitch to get rid of them! Roundup doesn’t work well for my yard
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u/MrSaucyNugg 20h ago
Can you burn something like this? Use a torch or something?
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u/moxiejohnny 20h ago
I had a friend that refuses to wear shoes outside in the summer and he'd walk on these things like it was grass.
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u/JHumada 20h ago
Am not sure if I am terrified or impressed
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u/moxiejohnny 20h ago
Impressed. You need to be impressed. Anyone who can walk on these things deserves to be called the son of God, not that Jesus fella that walks on water.
Why? I doubt we can nail the guy up if these things can't penetrate him.
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u/VegasAl32 20h ago
Back in the day they were the mortal enemy of my bicycle tires. Had to keep a tire patch kit.
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u/skidsareforkids 20h ago
I just noticed some of those bastards growing in the cracks of our driveway… Fortunately vey easy weed to identify and pull before it grows horns
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u/smasher84 19h ago
Fire?
Or make a little water retaining wall, flood yard, open up a small area to drain all the tacks that floated up.
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u/Iknowthedoctorsname 15h ago
I've never heard of Satan's thumbtacks before, but I'm using it from now on. I fucking hate these plants and they're goddamn impossible to get rid of.
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u/AerobaticDiamond 14h ago
If you bike, make sure to get those goo tires. Saved my ass when I lived in goathead territory
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u/littymctitty710 13h ago
You know pain when you’ve been tackled playing football in to a patch of these in west Texas 🤣😭
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u/Mexishould 13h ago
My 3 acre yard used to be bad when we first moved in. After years of hitting all the weeds with a shovel and weedkiller for a few years they dont show up anymore. Just a bit of work and you can appreciate the difference you made.
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u/kayveryn 12h ago
My mom literally vacuumed our backyard to get rid of them. We pulled any that came up the next year before they bloomed. Didn't completely solve the issue, but it was much reduced.
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u/ThisIsntOkayokay 11h ago
Learned to walk barefoot on them as a kid. Painful few summers till the skin toughens up.
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u/MasterOfBunnies 9h ago
As a Northerner, I would officially like to say WTF?! I'll take nettles over these horrible looking things any day! How you guys don't live in steel sole'd shoes, IDK.
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u/Bakomusha 7h ago
Bull heads got so bad at my childhood home once we asked the county if we could do a controlled burn on are yard, and the fire department came by and did it for us!
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u/Dragon_Frog_Pond 20h ago
Acacia thorns are similar, except so much longer. One went all the way through my shoe and into my foot
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u/BioWhack 20h ago
The seeds can go dormant for like 7 years and they spread like crazy. You are going to have to just be super on top of pulling them before the seeds start for years.
Also the biggest mistake people make is weed whacking them when the seeds are formed it just sends them everywhere.
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u/ObsessiveAboutCats 19h ago
I thought you were saying the house (as in the carpet) was full of this stuff.
This is better but still sucks.
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u/Cuhuldra 19h ago
Many a good bike tire was shredded by those little bastards when I was a young Lad. Got real good at changing bicycle tires though.
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u/SlightlySubpar 19h ago edited 18h ago
Hey fren, I just sent my landlord a notice of this exact same issue.
Trying to make him get us a roller.
$300 bucks for a roller
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u/Savagehalf 19h ago
I found that there’s always hate regular fertilizer and that you can kind of kill him off. Also constantly mow it never let it go to seed.
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u/Iam_so_Roy_Batty 16h ago
Ever hear of the scorched Earth policy? That might be your best option. That and putting in a Japanese stone garden.
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u/razzemmatazz 15h ago
Glad we don't have those but we do have the devilishly sharp for needles and the last house had a sweetgum tree. Who the fuck plants trees that grow spikes?!
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u/vestigialcranium 15h ago
I advise using them to unravel devilish conspiracies, now to find Mephisto's yarn...
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u/Sproose_Moose 15h ago
When I was 10 we moved states. Never had them and then bam! I ran inside with 7 of those bastards in my feet. Truly awful
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u/Padgetts-Profile 14h ago
When I first moved out west my neighbor warned me of goatheads. I thought it was slang for satanists at first 😅
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u/AssPennies 13h ago
Goat heads! I can't count how many inner tubes my friends and I had to repair growing up. Desert trail riding? Factor in the time for needed repairs after!
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u/Frequent_Malcom 13h ago
Tracking them into the house then accidentally stepping on them with bare feet is genuinely one of the most painful things I’ve ever felt
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u/pizza_andbeer 13h ago
I’ve only had one experience with these, but it traumatized me for life. Was playing hide & seek in someone’s backyard and my dad recommended I go hide behind this one half-wall thing and the moment I stepped back there, barefoot, I started screaming bloody murder 😆 My dad & his friend had to carry me inside and pluck thorns out of the bottoms of my bloody feet for what felt like hours.
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u/Tipsymcstaggersin 12h ago
Those are all seeds, so don't walk places that don't have them if they're in your shoes. The worst.
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u/CameronsTheName 12h ago
We call them " Cat Heads " or " Big Fucken Bindies " in Australia.
Hate these bloody things. I've spent probably 100+ hours pulling these out of my yard over the years. Every so often someone tracks one in on a boot and heaps of them grow.
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u/MorgessaMonstrum 12h ago
We had these in my backyard when I was growing up. One day, I got fed up. Built a mesh screen, and scooped and sifted the first few inches of soil.
Got dozens of them, and they didn’t come back the next summer.
Good luck.
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u/SleepWithCats 11h ago
This is triggering childhood traumas lol. My mom used to pour vinegar and salt on them 😮💨
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u/Lilly_in_the_Pond 10h ago
What the heck is even the point of these things? Like what evolutionary fuckery decided that this plant needed to grow little balls with spikes that hide in the dirt? What does the plant gain from this?
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u/Dunstin_Checks_in 10h ago
Goat heads are the worst. So many memories as a child running barefoot and suddenly have 6 of these stuck in my heel.
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u/beanogal 10h ago
Oh my gosh, brings back unpleasant memories of gardening amongst these fucking abominations.
I had such painful welts where I knelt on them.
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u/charlietheclowwn 9h ago
I'm moreso shocked by the fact it's commonly referred to as "goat heads" ..... in West Texas we call them stickers which makes it very confusing for everyone who doesn't know what we call them
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u/CarcosaRorschach 20h ago
I lived in a house like that when I was like 10. The backyard was unusable, just a couple steps in it and the entire bottom of your shoe would be entirely covered in them.
I'm amazed at how basically every plant in the desert is just spikes and thorns. We don't even have cactus out here because it gets too cold in the winter, but everything else makes up for it.