Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the very small purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to tell you all about my day, and to talk about some garden news as well. You may remember me from such posts as “The Infernal Machine”, and maybe a few others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. 
The guy I live with mentioned that this was the second Friday the thirteenth in a row, and that maybe all Fridays from now on will be the thirteenth, and, purely by coincidence, we have thirteen pictures today, hence the title of my post.
True, there are extra pictures of me, like this one
but we really didn’t add any to come up with thirteen, it just happened that way. Extra pictures of me are delightful, as I’m sure you will agree.
I had a pretty good day today. Shortly after these first two pictures were taken, I started looking all angelic
angelic
and then I sprang into action.
You can probably see how excellent the day started, just by this.
The guy I live with is pretty fun to play with, since he says I’m pretty much exactly like all the other border collies who have lived here, which is a compliment, of course, and it was really funny yesterday when I chomped on his rear end and nothing happened except that he said “Ow”, but being outside is very good, and we spent a lot of time out in the garden today. It rained a little last night, and so there was some mud, and that made it even better. I got to look around a lot. Here’s a picture of me investigating things.
The plastic thing, which I thought was pretty scary when I first saw it, is a cage to protect bulb flowers, so they can get their pictures taken.
We have bulbs in flower. A lot of them, actually.
Crocus ancyrensis ‘Golden Bunch’
Colchicum hungaricum ‘Valentine’
Crocus biflorus subsp. adamii
A mystery crocus appeared behind this one; similar, but with no stripes. The guy I live with thought about propagating it and calling it “Stripeless”, which is really original.
mystery crocus
There are a whole lot of cyclamen, too. These are Cyclamen coum. 
While the guy I live with was wandering around looking for things to take pictures of, I found something to chew. The guy I live with said it was a piece of a pine cone. Maybe I should ask for pine cones for breakfast. They’re good.
Funny thing: the guy I live with says I lose all sense of hearing when I’m outside, like if he calls my name or politely suggests that I not do something, but when he opens the bag of Newman’s Own treats, I can hear that from the farthest part of the yard.
So, see? A pretty interesting and worthwhile day. The guy I live with tried to take a nap on the couch this afternoon, and I jumped up on him, pretending I wanted to take a nap too, but instead I started chomping on him, which is a lot of fun. We played tug-of-chew-toy some, later.
I guess that’s all. I keep finding new places to curl up and take naps, and so I have to go look for a new one right now, so I’ll say goodbye for now.
Until next time, then.
I’ve been having a pretty busy day, so I’ll show you some garden pictures and then talk more about myself. I have a movie to show you, and it is truly excellent, so I’ll just go through these pictures quickly.
And Crocus atticus, or sieberi, ‘Bowles’ White’. 
Some of the hellebores are blooming in the side yard, but here’s one that’s almost open. I don’t go anywhere near hellebores.
And, finally, the whole point of the post. I had a lot of fun today, and the guy I live with made a movie of it.
the miserable gardener 