The Time Is At Hand ........

I just received a little handheld microscope for 13 bucks so I could get a good view of my glands (no - my glands aren't that small - my plants). Cool/Wow - it's just like all the pictures. Anyway, my buds are only to the point where about 15% of the trichomes have turned amber. But after looking at an overgrow.com faq i'm a little confused. That article stated that you don't time your harvest by the clouded/amber percentage, but rather by the clear/clouded percentage. Now, some of my trichomes are still of course clear, most clouded and some amber, so now I'm afraid I may have waited too long. They are Skunk #1 bythe way, and the aroma took awhile to develop, but it's now quite delightful. Also, do you worry at all that some buds are a little less mature than others, and just go by majority rules? Sorry - also wonder if you can do anything with all the fan leaves turning yellow - I've been clipping them and munching on some as I clip. Oh, hell. One last question - at what point do you determine the beginning of flowering for recording a total flowering time - from when you first see the first white stigmas? When full flowers - not the single pre flowers - start to develop? Sorry 'bout the multiple questions. Thanx

 

Thanks much for the informative chime-in. As a first-time grower any help is so much appreciated. As far as the flowering time, I'm growing outdoors, so I'm not sure. Unfortunately, I didn't keep good records, and the weather has been pretty freaky this year on top of it.
To make things worse, we've been getting morning fog lately, and I just snipped out a few buds with some developing mold. Boy, it's hard to spot the mold early, at least the kind I've got - the only sign was bud leaves turning black tip-first and curling. Upon inspection of the suspect buds, it appears that the mold grows from the inside-out. So a heads up to the less experienced, like me - check those buds REALLY carefully!