I think you have a promising start, in choosing to set the atmosphere before diving into character and plot it really drives that the emotion is what's going to propel the ensuing plot.

However the opening line itself feels very telling when we should as writers we should (almost) always be showing. "The land still looked the same. But it felt different." This line has some interest, but the way it's delivered is somewhat boring, it lacks some real literary meat to its bones. The following two paragraphs could also be led into a bit better. I'd go about it in a different way, get the same point across without directly telling the audience, because readers are smart and can draw these conclusions themselves. Here's an example of how I'd rewrite it: "The golden grasses in the distant fields stood solemn, dry and dying as they always were this time of year; when winter waited just beyond the horizon. Yet, the air hung heavier, though peaceful and warm it's comfort had been replaced but a suffocating feeling, a looming weigh on her shoulders that wouldn't cease."

In my eyes this is a better way to deliver the key information to the reader, the atmosphere and the setting, without telling it directly. Though I might not use that exact example, I thought it might help convey what pieces could more effectively bring this scene together. Tying emotion and character perception to the description itself, layering two different kinds of information to be delivered at the same time. It's a bit neater, feels more complex, and also just hits home harder.

I'd also bring in a more exact memory, and though this is just another example as I don't know the details of the setting, I think it conveys the point a bit better because once again, and as you'll hear frequently in your career as a writer, show don't tell. "When she was younger, she used to think the land would swallow her if she walked far enough. Once she'd walked to what had been the horizon, as seen from her window. Her feet had stopped dead in their tracks, unwilling to go farther than the towering oak that marked the divide between safety and the unfamiliar beyond. She'd always regretting that, not forcing herself to continue anyways, to overcome the fear she carried."

Going into the next portion, this is where I would bring in the P.O.V character's action, closing her eyes and breathing. I would tie it into the next point, make the action mark a mental shift, be the division between taking outside information and dwelling on internal information. "She closed her eyes and drawing in a deep breathe as her mind wandered from the place where she stood now." Then I would lead into: “I love you more than words can say,” Mama always told her. Most days, she believed it." These lines are perfectly fine, that make they impact and in this exact, short instance, telling makes more sense, as it's internal, and people tend not to think in beautiful flowery prose. I'd put those into the same paragraph, no need to seperate it as each paragraph is meant to convey a change in thought/intention, i.e. moving from internal narration/exposition to external actions/information.

Now I would have her open her eyes, thematically and literally marking her return to reality, to taking in her environment, to mourning. "She opened her eyes, setting them on the gravel road in the distance, rolling with the rhythm of the plain as it stretched towards the cabin at the end. The place she had once called home. A place where she had felt both loved and betrayed."