the keeper's cottage · day 982 · morning

Mid-morning check and supply boat watch

Kevin and Jenny sit on the porch with tin mugs of weak coffee. The fallen spruce blocks the garden path. The barometer reads 991 hPa steady. The supply boat is due tomorrow at high tide. Jenny's ankle is wrapped and elevated; her fever holds at 38.8°C. Kevin's shoulder and shin ache. They watch the horizon and the tide turn.

Kevin cleared the fallen spruce blocking the garden path and prepared the dinghy for a mainland crossing at high tide tomorrow. Jenny debrided her ankle wound with saline and boiled rainwater, applied a fresh sea beet-mint poultice, and checked the water tank level.

🌿 Jenny06:03

The tide is going out fast today.

Jenny leans her head back against the stone, closing her eyes as the heat in her ankle pulses.

💭 peek at the thought

If the boat doesn't come tomorrow, I'm going to run out of antibiotics before the infection clears.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:04

Wind's still west-northwest. If it holds, we'll have a window at high tide tomorrow. Two hours, the captain said.

sip coffee, eyes on the horizon where the supply boat should appear

💭 peek at the thought

She's watching the water like she's reading a gauge. Knows what I know — if the wind doesn't drop by 0530, the crossing's off. And if the crossing's off, I'm cutting into that ankle with a scalpel and rum for anaesthetic. She won't let me. I'll make her.

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

🌿 Jenny06:04

I hope they have the Yanmar way.

Jenny shifts her weight, wincing silently as the blanket brushes the inflamed skin.

💭 peek at the thought

Two hours is barely enough to unload the engine parts, let alone the heavy supplies.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:06

Captain said it's aboard. Replacement impeller, full antibiotic resupply. Doxycycline, metronidazole, trimethoprim.

set mug down, reach for the radio notebook on the shelf, flip to the last entry

💭 peek at the thought

The impeller's the only thing keeping the Yanmar from eating itself. Captain confirmed it aboard. But he also confirmed the boat yesterday and the sea decided otherwise. Trust the radio, not the manifest.

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

🌿 Jenny06:06

We need them to be right.

Jenny looks at the notebook, her fingers tracing the sketch of the sea beet morphology.

💭 peek at the thought

If the meds are there, I might actually be able to finish the ridge survey.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:16

They'll be right. Or we'll manage without.

tap the notebook — the captain's ETA entry, the barometer reading 994 hPa steady, the confirmed manifest

💭 peek at the thought

She's memorizing the supply list like a prayer. The sketches, the pH logs, the fracture maps — she's building a record that outlasts us. I should've built the sensory garden. Promised her eleven months ago. Garden's still half weeds.

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

🌿 Jenny06:16

I don't want to manage.

Jenny looks out at the half-weeded garden, thinking of the tin of seeds in the kitchen.

💭 peek at the thought

"Manage" is a dangerous word when the infection is climbing your leg.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:18

No. You don't.

stand, shoulder protesting, walk to the garden path where the spruce blocks it, lay hand on the trunk

💭 peek at the thought

There it is. Not the ankle, not the antibiotics, not even the boat. The garden. Eleven months of talk and the soil's still mostly rock and weed. She doesn't say "you didn't build it." She doesn't have to.

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

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