RAWLINS (AP) - When lightning hit the cottonwood in Jerry Rakoczy's front yard, it streaked down both sides of the trunk, leaving cracks in the tree and two fist-sized holes in the ground.

The cottonwood struggled on for about three years, but the tree was losing leaves, and Rakoczy worried branches would fall on his or his neighbor's house.

"I chopped it down to this size here," he said, gesturing to a wooden sculpture, maybe 12 feet tall, sprouting from his yard in Sinclair.

He pulled out photographs of what was left of the tree after the big branches shading the yard had been removed. Long vertical pieces of bark are missing in the photograph, like streaks of white in a black head of hair. The trunk's three arms are severed.

Two of the arms are now wings, and the third is a hooded head.

Rakoczy has been carving the tree since May, in between spells of bad weather.

"I was going to make it into kind of a Roman soldier with wings, then I thought this would be a little more pleasing," he said.

The sculpture can be whatever anyone wants it to be, Rakoczy explained.

"It can be a tree guardian," he said. "It can be an angel."

Rakoczy first carved wood when he was a Boy Scout.

"I've never stopped," he said.

He didn't take any classes. He remembers picking up pieces of wood to carve a bear or duck when he was a kid in New Mexico. His hands show the scars of these lessons.

"I guess it's just something that comes out," he said. "If I could make a living out of it, I would."

Tackling the remains of the cottonwood in his yard was a new challenge. It was bigger than anything Rakoczy had carved before. He won first place at the Wyoming State Fair in 1997 for an eagle he carved out of bass wood, but the bird's wingspan was only 28 inches.

He's accustomed to carving ornamental birds and rifle stocks. He often decorates the stocks with nature scenes, like an antelope facing off against a coyote, but he's done a carving of a Pokemon for a friend's son.

The carvings are intricate and sometimes include scrollwork. He uses chisels with points as small as the tip of a sharpened pencil.

For the cottonwood, he needed to start with something bigger. First he sketched out the design on a photograph.

"I took a chain saw out and started roughing out the big parts," he said. "My neighbors are really good about me running my chain saw."

It's a work in progress.

Rakoczy's still cutting out the rope belt, which he's outlined in black marker on the pale wood. He wants to make the hands smaller, and the face isn't quite done either.

When Christmas rolls around, he plans to set up lights.

But the sculpture might not be in Rakoczy's yard too much longer.

It's not that he doesn't like when people stop their cars and take a photograph with their cell phones, though he would prefer to have the sculpture in his backyard.

"It's nice to see people enjoy it," he said. "I didn't plan it that way. If I had my druthers, I would have just done it in my backyard, but the tree is where it is."

The sculpture is the final chapter in the life of a tree Rakoczy watched grow old with his two daughters. He took photos of the girls each year in front of the cottonwood.

"The tree was just kind of part of the family," he said.

Rakoczy wants another tree in his front yard. He plans to cut down the sculpture to make room. He's not sure what he's going to do with it.

"Somebody might want it sitting in their yard," he said.

He's thinking about planting a variety of birch "to diversify from cottonwood."

If lightning ever strikes again, that might have its advantages.

"Birch has always been a good carving medium," he said.