In this case, it's the time of the season for lots of interesting smells and Caz feels a need to lead me to each of them, over hill and dale, through swamp and forest, and mostly through fields of burrs and burdocks.

  It's the time of the season.
  When burrs stick tight.
  In this time, watch your footsteps
  Or you will try with gentle hands
  To pry burrs from your clothing, from your socks
  You really ought to know.
  It's the time of the season for burdocks.

I've mostly been able to avoid the "stick-tights", but I missed a crop of them on one of our treks through the bogs. I came home with one sock completely plastered with eighth-inch long burrs that demonstrate a stronger attachment than most married couples.

I think these are fiddlenecks, also known as yellow burr weed or fireweed. I know they are as welcome as long covid.

I pulled a dozen or so of the burrs off my sock by hand before I got bored.

A quick web search led me to believe that nobody has ever come up with a technique for removing these things.

Which sounds like a scientific challenge!

My first thought was to see if the seeds would open or disintegrate in boiling water.

The result is that I now know boiling socks do not smell as bad as you might think.

They smell worse.

What boiling doesn't do is to loosen the burrs.

On to the second idea...

I soaked them for a day in a mix of water and Nature's Miracle--a cleaning compound with enzymes to decompose various things like urine--followed by a 3-hour washing machine cycle with hot water and lots of rinses.

The burrs survived this, still attached to their first love.

A couple minutes in the microwave warmed them up nicely, and if you look closely you can see them wearing Bermuda shorts instead of long-johns.

A week in a Biz solution softened them a little. They were still stuck to the socks, but a few hours in the washer and a visit to the dryer actually removed a few of them.

At least, it removed enough so I can wear the sock, and I'll count that as a strategice win.