SOLVED. coming of age story about a young shepherd spending his first summer alone tending the sheep [s]

[Jay]

I read this book for school in the late 90s/early 2000s. It is about a teenage boy who comes from a family of ranchers/shepherds and has to spend his first summer alone on a plateau looking after the sheep. It is set in the US somewhere. There is a scene in the beginning where he tries to show off for a girl in a car by jumping his horse over a ditch. There is another bit about how he brews really weak coffee to start because the smell reminds him of home but as the summer goes by he starts to like the taste. A sheep gets bitten by a snake at one point and he can't remember whether he is supposed to suck the venom out or not. When he drives the sheep back at the end of the summer, he remembers jumping the horse for the girl and thinks he was silly to do it. Also at the beginning I think his dad and uncle (?maybe) take him up to the plateau and stay for a few days to help him get set up.

Any ideas? This has been bugging me for ages.

[Tab]

The Haymeadow sounds like it.

[Diana]

I also read this and sometimes tried to remember what it was! Thanks.

[Jay]

That is it! Thanks!