Lately I've been thinking about the importance of timing.

It all started with my butternut crop, which is a real bumper this year. More than 25 large butternuts are gently ripening on the vine in my caged veggie garden; more than enough to see these two utter butter-nutters through to next year's crop! But unfortunately I'm not the only one aware of this tantalising fact...
For the past week we have been visited nightly by the entire extended bushpig family. Mama, Papa, several little piglets and also the uncles, aunts and second cousins, twice removed... in short, a whole sounder of pigs (I looked it up - can you believe it, that's the proper collective noun for a group of boars.)
Pikachu, our miniature Dachshund, has really been earning his keep in kibbles by alerting us to their presence (usually some time between 2 and 4 am!) Every time Arn has been able to charge outside with his torch and chase the greedy oinkers away before they do too much damage. Despite this, on two separate occasions, a particularly adventurous junior has dug under (and through) the birdnet into my veggie cage and has destroyed raised beds and damaged tomato and tomatillo plants.
And it's not just the bushpigs salivating for a taste of our succulent harvest. Every morning we find fresh bushbuck hoof prints circling the cage and we can hear the baboons barking and the monkeys chattering daily in anticipation of the feast in the wattle grove adjoining our property.
So now, the question is: do I harvest the butternuts and sacrifice some growth potential or do I risk losing the whole lot (including the pumpkins and many other crops) to a porky thief in the night?

This issue of timing has also arisen with respect to writing my next book. With The Green Lady, Books I & II, written and published (well, 8 Feb for Book II), my latest book is just quivering with the desire to be written. I have to keep reigning in my impatience to begin. Because I'm a bit of a binge writer and I know that, once I start, the entire world can fall apart around me and I won't even notice. So I'm trying to ensure that I'm up-to-date with everything that needs to be done so that I can start writing with a clear conscience. Another, more vexing question also arises: when will I have done enough research or sufficient introspection to adequately prepare me to write this book, which will definitely be my most challenging to date? When do I call a halt to the planning and reflection and preparation and actually start the creative process? The real question is, I suppose, when will the heart's desire to create this work out-compete the ego's fear of it not being good enough...?
I guess that too is a matter of timing.