Situated 8 miles south of Chapel Hill, Fearrington Village is the perfect rural setting near this college town.    Because we are out of the city limits and in fact considered Chatham County we are nestled amongst many, many trees!   This year we are lucky enough to be in the heart of the periodic cicada brood XIX awakening.   The nymphs are starting to emerge now all over the community, the dried up husks we see attached to everything – the cicada emerges from this shell.    The pervasive wall of sound from these millions has begun and it is impressive!   These courageous little creatures are singing their swan song and will only live a few weeks thereafter.   Once the females mate, they will in turn plant millions of eggs into the trees – those will hatch, fall and burrow into the ground to munch on roots and slumber for 13 years when the cycle begins again!    My yard is covered in these guys in various stages of undress and I have been picking them up and helping them to grasp the trees as their wings are still unfurling, guess I should let nature do its ‘survival of the fittest thing’ but the entire trip seems so daunting.   I suppose there is a lesson to be had here,  in their beautiful audacity to dig their way up into another world, in their grit to climb to the heavens and in their steadfast instinct to sing!