Apart — Kevin at the keeper's cottage, Jenny at the dock

Afternoon load test and dock work

Kevin is at the cottage preparing the Yanmar for its hour-long load test while Jenny works the dock mooring ring as the southwest wind builds.

Kevin tested the Yanmar engine on the dinghy to check for vibrations after the recent repairs. Jenny attempted to reinforce the loose mooring ring on the dock but struggled with her swelling ankle and the state of the wood.

🔧 Kevin — alone at the keeper's cottage

You run the cooling hose over the gunwale, secure the tachometer lead, and check the fuel line for bubbles. The engine turns over on the third pull — clean catch, no smoke. You let it warm at idle, watching the temperature gauge climb, then ease the throttle to 1600 RPM. The vibration needle on your improvised gauge stays flat. You start the timer.

🔧 Kevin22:44

Kevin — keep watching the tach and temp gauge, let the engine run

💭 peek at the thought

Engine's holding steady at 1600 — smooth as it's been since the sleeve went in. No harmonics creeping in. Halfway through the hour now. Jenny's at the dock; I hope she's off that ankle.

nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b

🔧 Kevin22:47

Kevin — glance at the timer, then at the cooling tell-tale streaming overboard

💭 peek at the thought

Thirty minutes in. Still clean. Oil pressure steady. Cooling water peeing strong over the side. The vibration fix held — bronze sleeve, trued shaft, injector seated. It's not going to shake itself apart. Good.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🔧 Kevin22:51

Kevin — ease throttle back to idle, let it settle a moment, then kill the ignition

💭 peek at the thought

Forty-five minutes. Engine's purring. No change in note, no wobble in the mount bolts. The harmonic at 1800 is gone — or at least buried deep enough it doesn't matter. Sixteen hundred is honest cruising speed. I'll log it, then kill her and check the plug colour.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny — alone at the dock

You have the bronze bolts, the steel doubler plate, and the epoxy residue. The tide is low enough to work the mortise from below if you lie on the planks and reach down. You scrape out the last of the crushed cedar and oak, feeling the worn edges with your fingers. The wind gusts, slapping the spare tarp against the generator shed.

🌿 Jenny22:45

Jenny — lie flat on the rotting dock planks and reach under the jetty to clear the debris from the mortise with a way knife.

💭 peek at the thought

The rot goes deeper than the surface shows. If I don't seating these bolts now, the whole ring will shear off when the supply boat tries to tie in.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🌿 Jenny22:49

Jenny — slide the steel doubler plate into position and thread the bronze bolts through the mortise, tightening them firmly with the wrench.

💭 peek at the thought

My fingers are numb and the wood is slimy, but I can feel the bottom of the void now. It's clean enough.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

🌿 Jenny22:53

Stay put. Just stay put.

Stand up slowly, wipe the grime from my palms onto my trousers, and check the tightness of the bolts one last time.

💭 peek at the thought

Finally. No more shifting. If the boat hits this dock with a swell, the ring might bend, but it won't rip out of the wood.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.