When I posted these I forgot to mention that Cindy had an ongoing project to photograph the cottonwood throughout the year. I selected a few pictures from the hundreds available. No spring pictures that I could find.
These were taken about four years ago and the tree has now doubled in size. It was planted on the bank of the creek about 25 years ago; the creek has been dry for about ten years now.
The break in the “rabbit fence” (specially designed to let rabbits in), which is visible in a few pictures, was caused by an overweight, or just huge, raccoon climbing over to get at the apples (leaves on extreme left).