Instead of putting my dogs out on their trolley at a certain time which I usually do, I was reading Itchmo Forums and conversing with a few friends.  Good thing. 

A huge branch laden with apples splintered off our apple tree and the limb is suspended from the main sections still partially attached.  The ends of the branches and apples are now right in the spot where the dogs have been digging a hole every day for the last few weeks and laying there, playing and chilling out.  I heard a series of noises like twigs being broken and then woooooshh, down it came.  Branch is huge.  This is an old, tall tree. 

Still plenty of apples left on the remaining tree, enough to make pies.  However, now I'm looking for uses for the bushels of green apples.  What I can't use, we will leave out for the wild critters in the area to munch on.

Any green apple recipes?

I'm so glad my pups were in the house with me.  I might not have gotten out in time to get them away from there.  They were tied on a trolley.   

Here's a recipe for green apple pie:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1637,159183-241198,00.html
and grilled green apples:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_34092,00.html
  

That is a wonderful story, Justme!  I am so glad that Itchmo delayed you a bit in getting the dogs out.  Who would think that a branch would just come down like that?  Happily just a close call story.  

Thanks everybody, and thanks for the recipes and pie ideas.  yummmy.

Definitely angels, two of them today, one for each dog. 

Thank you MrsP and PMM.   

JustMe, what wonderful news.  Apple pie w/ green apples is GR8.  Injured dogs would be really bad news.  Thanks for the report.  Stay tuned to Itchmo!  Seriously, I am so hapy to hear your kids are OK.  That was a narrow escape.

And yes, as another poster stated just above, it was a post on Itchmo that encouraged me to believe my dog when he refused a food he had always welcomed.  Wondering why a thread on Innova was so popular, I had to read it, and there right in front of me was a good possible explanation for Jake's refusing his Karma, made by the same company.  We still don't have any answers back on that one bag of Karma, but since it had the same black and white particles/chunks as Innova and made by same company, I knew I needed to trust Jake's instincts.  That saved Jake from either going hungry for days or being forced to eat it and becoming ill or worse.

KimS,

It's airline cable that runs between 2 trees or posts.  Mine are about 150 long from one tree to the other.  Sort of like in this picture. 

They are never left out there unsupervised.