Wow!  Something you don't really think about often..  You just triggered a memory I had long forgotten.. even after keeping up with the recent Ohio City Crematory zoning issue.

My grandfather has a family farm way up in the hills of West Virginia.  It is so old, a family cemetary is on site..  Even West Virginia doesn't allow you to bury those who have passed at home anymore... haven't for a very, very long time.

The burial plot is high up on a hill at the edge of a woody area and the back of the nearest grazing field.  It is surrounded with a white, picket fence, which is about chest high and each picket is carefully spaced so you can see through, but solid enough so the cows couldn't get through.  A large cross sits in the middle. 

While it was a little creepy during thunderstorms.. especially with the wooded back drop, it was also comforting having your ancestors "on site." 

We're lucky that the farm is still in the family.  With Mead/Westvaco surrounding every possible inch of land to rape the trees for paper, my grandfather hasn't sold out.  But if he did, what would happen to the graveyard?  Are there laws protecting that little space?  And, we are all so transient today..  long gone are the days when property was handed down and lived in by following generations..