How does the author use imagery in the novel, Universal Harvester?

Example of Imagery:

"But a farmhouse has no neighbors, and if you try looking for them, it shrinks. Its architecture is functional, its staircase carpeted old pine, not oak or maple; its window frames were painted white once long ago and never touched up again. Walk twenty paces from its door and you're waist-high in corn or knee-high in bean fields, already forgetting the feel of being behind a door, safely shielded from sky."