I spent the next week nursing/hydrating them back and the rat nest recovered pretty well! 

Before

This was 10 days later

..but the ladies still needed to be cleaned up and their legs shaved. It was so thick with foliage that there was no air circulating and no light was penetrating the canopy. I really should have thinned things up before I left, but I thought I had time more time; isn't that always the case?

Since they have recovered pretty well, I cut everything off the bottom 1/2 of the plants. It took about 3 hours to trim. They looked MUCH better, but I neglected to get a good picture because it was time for the dark cycle and I rushed to get them back in the tent.

3 weeks passed and I was into my final 2 weeks of nute planning. The penultimate week is just some Bloom and a bunch of Ripen. I looked closely at the trichomes, they were turning a nice milky color with a bit of amber. I knew I was close but greedy so I left them for 3 more days:

Today I cut both ladies down and hung each up respectively with all leaves attached. I did a wet trim last time and removed all fan leaves, but I wanted to try a slower drying approach and these gals were stankin up the place so they had to get back in the tent. 

I checked the trichomes first and I think I missed things by a hair. I am seeing more amber than I wanted, but still around 15% ambers (I think). A neighbor told me he always harvests on the early side and does not like any amber color, so I thought I would try it. The last grow I wanted to make sure to finish out my nute plan and have a full week of flush so I let things get to about 30-40% amber trichomes, which I think hurt some of the potency I could have had; so that was in the back of my mind. I regret not getting to flush things, but now I will know which end to error or to get the potency and flavor I am looking for. Here are the images from a few hours ago:

...I am getting some errors trying to upload. I will try again tomorrow.

I have adjusted my tent for drying:

• Total darkness 
• Reduced oscillating fan speed to 1 and 3, with one fan always running and both blowing indirectly
• Temp: 68°F with a 3°F buffer (putting temp range 68-71°F)
• Humidity: 57% with a 3% buffer (RH range 57-60%)

I will check back on them in 1 week