[Carry_Okie]

Would that be the stickers with the cork-screw tails? If so, that would be filaree. Filaree is very popular with people with grazing animals, as it has a very high protien content. It's a tough weed, resistant to a good many herbicides. You can spray it, it will burn off, and then it puts up a single flower with hardly any leaves which makes it hard to see. I've beaten it back with RoundUp, but only very slowly. SpeedZone Southern works, but requires a Pest Control Applicator's license to purchase. Timing is critical, you have to get the plant in active growth in the early season. Soil temperature is the critical indicator.

A combination of perrennial grasses and pre-emergence and selective herbicides (such as SpeedZone) should work, but I have never attacked a large infestation.

If you don't like burrs, keep your eyes open for the bedstraws and hedge parsley. Both are spreading rapidly in Santa Cruz, thanks to County mowers. If you need photos to help identify these plants, send me a FReepmail with your email address and I can provide them to you.

Finally, if the burrs look like little bananas, that would be tarweed, which is native and a good soil conditioner. The best long-term management against tarweeds is good perrenial groundcovers, as the seedling is relatively non-competitive. One reason so many tarweed species are endangered is that government "protects" them by precluding soil disturbance they need to get started.

[EggsAckley]

That corkscrew tail filaree sounds like it. The leaves also have stickers on them, kind of like nettle. There's even a third sticker-thingie that they produce before the corkscrews. I used to have them somewhat under control until this year. I think the heavy rains triggered a comeback of them.
Thanks for the info.