What is the setting in the opening pages of the novel, All the Wind in the World?

The story begins at the farm at Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where Sarah and James are working on the maguey fields. The field is part of a desert region and Sarah talks about the monotony of the landscape, with the brown buildings looking very much like the brown ground and a blue sky seldom broken by clouds. Storms pop up, often and quickly, and the workers know what they are supposed to do when that happens. Sarah and James leave the farm after Sarah is partly responsible for the death of a foreman.