Like a sudden outbreak of dengue fever Christmas somehow got started in October this year.

The stuttering eruption, November 20, of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution was believed at the time to have been missed by most of the nation’s 10 million-plus inhabitants.

Guicho Barrios was probing the tall rainy-season weeds at the lee side of his troje (barn) when I stopped to check on him after heavy midweek rains.

Winter in the Jalisco highlands usually arrives in the second half of October.

Editor’s note: While blood sport with animals is deemed animal cruelty north-of-the-border, a few countries still allow and promote this 6,000-year old spectacle. Mexico is one of them. Although the Fiestas de Octubre in Guadalajara has been cancelled this year, cockfighting is a nightly event at that festival, generally held just before a well-known Mexican musical star or band takes the stage.

In many of Mexico’s rural pueblos the rainy season is duende time. Duendes are small creatures, elf-like, but more malign.