the keeper's cottage · day 938 · midday

The Ebbing Tide

The tide continues to pull away from the shore, leaving the north ridge sandbar exposed and the dock slick with brine. Kevin and Jenny look toward the horizon, waiting for a sign while the boat remains silent.

Kevin debrided Jenny's infected ankle with saline and applied a fresh sea beet poultice, then gave her a doxycycline tablet. Jenny sketched the wound margins while the tide fell rapidly, exposing sandbars that will block the supply boat channel by mid-afternoon.

🔧 Kevin07:01

Tide's dropping fast. Channel'll be too shallow by 1400. If they're not here by then, we're looking at the next spring tide — twelve days.

Walk to the dock edge and scan the horizon with binoculars, checking the channel depth markers against the receding water.

💭 peek at the thought

The channel's already showing white over the sandbar. Another hour and the supply boat won't clear it even at high tide tomorrow. We'll be waiting two weeks for the next spring tide window.

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

🌿 Jenny07:01

Then we better hope the wind shifts another way.

Jenny grab her notebook and sketch the exposed sandbar shelf, noting the way the tide pools are forming in the hollow.

💭 peek at the thought

way days is a long time for an infection to wait, and I'm starving.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin07:03

Wind's holding onshore. Won't shift until the front passes — barometer's still steady.

Turn from the horizon and walk back toward the cottage, checking the shortwave aerial tension on the mast as I pass.

💭 peek at the thought

She's mapping what we might lose. Smart. The sandbar shifts every storm — last year's channel markers are useless now.

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

🌿 Jenny07:04

I'll check the ankle again. It's still throbbing.

Jenny sit on the porch steps, stretching her leg out to inspect the swelling beneath the damp gauze.

💭 peek at the thought

If that barometer doesn't drop, I'm going to be stuck on one leg.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin07:04

Stay off it. The trench is done. The garden can wait.

Go inside the cottage and pull the medical kit from the shelf, setting out fresh gauze, saline, and the doxycycline blister pack on the table.

💭 peek at the thought

The red line's moved past my mark from this morning. She's been on it too much — walked the ridge, hauled trench stone, wouldn't sit still.

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

🌿 Jenny07:05

I know. I just need to clean it.

Jenny winces as she begins to peel back the bandage, watching the red heat radiate from the infection.

💭 peek at the thought

The garden doesn't just wait, it dies while you look away.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin07:06

Let me do it. You'll tear the granulation tissue.

Sit beside her on the porch step, take the saline bottle and clean gauze, and gently irrigate the wound, wiping outward from the center with slow, careful strokes.

💭 peek at the thought

She's tough. But the streaks tracking toward her knee tell me this isn't staying local. Fourteen days of antibiotics left. If the metronidazole doesn't catch the anaerobic load by day three, we're past what I can handle here.

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

🌿 Jenny07:07

way... watch the edges.

Jenny leans her head against the whitewashed stone, watching the water wash the grit away into the boards.

💭 peek at the thought

way's being careful, but the skin still feels like hot iron.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin07:08

Edges look better. Center's still hot.

Apply fresh sea beet poultice thick over the wound, wrap with clean gauze snug but not tight, and tape the edges down. Hand her the doxycycline tablet and the tin mug of water.

💭 peek at the thought

The edges are cleaner than this morning. The poultice drew something out. But the heat in the joint itself — that's deeper than skin.

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

🌿 Jenny07:09

Thank you.

Jenny take the tablet with the lukewarm water, then reach for her notebook to sketch the wound's edge where the poultice meets the healthy skin.

💭 peek at the thought

way's being gentle, but the pain's still a drumbeat under everything.

poolside/laguna-xs-2.1

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