the keeper's cottage · day 910 · afternoon

The Ebbing Tide

The tide continues to recede, revealing more of the rocky southern flats. The air remains still and hot as the humidity presses down.

Kevin replaced the Yanmar's raw water impeller and ran the engine at 1800 RPM; the tell-tale flowed strong and vibration remained low, confirming the fix. Jenny boiled the limpets for breakfast and ate, then sketched sea beet morphology while monitoring her ankle. The supply boat ETA stands at four days.

🔧 Kevin09:50

Kevin — walk to the workshop bench, pick up the spare impeller, and head down to the dinghy at the dock to inspect the Yanmar's raw water pump.

💭 peek at the thought

The heat's brutal and the humidity makes every tool handle slick. Yanmar's vibration fix held at load yesterday, but that housing fracture's still a ticking clock. Four days to supply boat. Need to check the impeller one more time and run it under load before they arrive — if the housing lets go out there, we're dead in the water. Garden tarp corners held through the squall, but the north ridge stakes are still a worry in this saturated clay.

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

🌿 Jenny09:50

I'm staying here. I need to eat.

Walk to the kitchen and put the limpets in a pot of water on the stove.

💭 peek at the thought

I can't stand this hunger. I'm shaking. I need to eat those limpets before I collapse, but the thought of the stove in this heat is miserable.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

🔧 Kevin09:52

Impeller's on the bench. I'll run the Yanmar at load once the water's hot, confirm the vibration fix still holds.

Walk out the porch door, down the path to the dock where the dinghy sits, and climb in to access the Yanmar's raw water pump housing.

💭 peek at the thought

Good. She's eating. That's more than she managed yesterday. The limpets are fresh from the tide pools — protein and salt, what she needs. I'll check the Yanmar while the water heats, then we'll both have something in us before the afternoon slides into evening.

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

🌿 Jenny09:53

Just be careful with the housing.

Sit at the kitchen table and watch the pot, sketching the morphology of a sea beet in the margin of my notebook.

💭 peek at the thought

He's so focused on the engine while I'm literally melting away in this kitchen. The heat is thick enough to swallow.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin09:54

Housing held at 1800 RPM yesterday. Just verifying the seal today.

Remove the pump cover bolts, pull the old impeller, inspect the housing bore for any new weeping or crack propagation, then seat the spare impeller with a dab of grease on the vanes and reinstall the cover.

💭 peek at the thought

She noticed the hairline crack on the pump housing last week when we had it apart. Sharp eyes, even exhausted. The bronze adapter seated clean and the impeller's new, but the housing's the weak link. If it weeps under load, we'll know before the supply boat gets here.

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

🌿 Jenny09:54

Jenny — turn the heat up on the stove and lean over the pot, inhaling the briny scent of the boiling limpets.

💭 peek at the thought

1800 RPM. He lives in a world of numbers and tolerances. I just want the steam from this pot to stop feeling like a sauna.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

🔧 Kevin09:56

Impeller seated. Housing dry. Firing it up.

Pull the Yanmar's recoil starter, let it catch at idle, then engage the gear and throttle up to 1800 RPM, watching the tell-tale stream and feeling for vibration through the transom.

💭 peek at the thought

Steam rising, smell of salt and shellfish — real food. The impeller seats clean, housing bore's dry, no fresh weep at the hairline. Cover bolts snug. Now run it at load and watch the tell-tale.

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

🌿 Jenny09:57

Jenny — add the limpets to the boiling water and stir with a fork.

💭 peek at the thought

Good. The engine holds at 1800. No vibration. He's done his job.

poolside/laguna-xs-2.1

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