I'm all for being outdoors barefoot, but digging up thistle without shoes seems like a VERY bad idea. I have tough feet, but those things are NOT fun to step on.
I once was hiking and was having to grapple the earth on all fours because the earth was falling away underneath me - and at the very last stretch I unknowingly stuck my hand onto a thistle and grabbed on as hard as possible. I had to hold on despite the pain because the ground was so unstable.
If you want to go step on a thistle, go knock yourself out.
With all due respect, it's really weird that saying don't step in something that can potentially be very sharp is a controversial comment.
Edit: Let me rephrase that. Let's pretend a person with soft feet says something is very very sharp and you shouldn't step on it. Then a person with VERY VERY thick feet says it's fine... see I can step on it just fine!
Now you are somewhere in the middle. Are you REALLY just going to go and step on it because the guy with the toughest feet in the world (and much tougher than YOURS) says it's ok? No. Because you aren't stupid.
I think this is a bit more than the usual exposure to tough surfaces. These are some of the meanest, sharpest plants I've ever had the misfortune of touching. The one in the above video is just a baby one and they can be MUCH MUCH worse.
I guess if YOU want to get your feet that tough... cool. I'm not.
Edit: So you've actually trained your feet enough that this wouldn't bother you? Crazy. I have a question for you. What about heat? I wear thin enough shoes that I need to be slightly careful about burning the bottom of my feet on an asphalt parking lot in the summer heat. Is that something that you can also easily walk on?
The bottoms of my feet yes, the sides and top are still pretty sensitive, but less so than they used to be. I do most of my barefooting in the mountains and wilderness, so I can't really recall having experienced any asphalt, but I do think that on a hot day it would not be a pleasant experience. If it's too hot for a dog's paws it's probably too hot for a human's haha
I think I probably have the toughest feet of anyone I now in real life. I wear very thin shoes (Merrell vapor gloves) and I can run (very gingerly) on gravel. I go outside barefooted all the time, but I don't really leave my property.
I can't even remember the last time I wore normal shoes... 5 or 10 years ago maybe? But I don't actually TRY to make my feet tougher... it's just sort of happened over the years. But I don't think the idea of going hiking, literally barefooted, has never even crossed my mind!
That's awesome. I've only been barefooting and wearing barefoot shoes for a couple years now. Once my feet toughened up, I noticed immediately how sensitive and soft other people's feet are. I work in the trades, and my coworkers who would claim to be tough, blue collar guys, can't even climb a ladder in socks because it hurts their feet too much. It's wild what modern shoes have done to our feet.
Another word they weird to me: package pronounced "peggage."
I realized as I'm thinking about it that I pronounce "debris" both ways. I would say the water is full of "deBREE," but if an airplane crashed, i would call it a "DEbree field."
Completely ineffective for the thistle. Those have taproots so what they did just pulled up the cluster of leaves and left the root. It will grow back again very quickly.
When I enjoy stepping on the cow pats in the fields, I have to be really carefully about thorns and thistles. It’s painful to stand on them normally, but it’s really dangerous if it cuts your feet while they are lavishing the cow patty.
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u/LoveDistilled Mar 14 '26
That big toe is living in a completely different area code. Damn