The old real estate adage: "location, location, location" is really true in Sandpoint. Your experience can vary widely depending on where you live. Our house sits at around the 3,000 foot elevation, whereas downtown Sandpoint is at a little over 2,000. The weather we get is very different than the weather in town.
Even though town is reportedly getting mostly rain and nasty slush this week, we got snow. LOTS of snow. (In the Local Look section, you can see pictures of monumental "snow curls" off the roofs nearby.) The trees are just laden with the white stuff. When all that snow falls off the roof and trees, trouble ensues.
On Wednesday, for example, we had no electricity. (We couldn’t get the generator started, so I did some work on my battery-powered laptop.) It’s really, really quiet at the old homestead when there’s no power. No refrigerator, no heater fans, nothing. Just a few groans, pops, and clicks from the wood stove.
The other noise is the snow periodically creeping down and then whooooshing off the roof. I don’t know if noisy snow activity is unique to metal roofs, but I do know that our roof sheds snow really well.
I share my home and office with four dogs, and snow charging off the roof is a source of great excitement for the canine team. They are pretty sure that there’s a marauder up there on the roof. For the first few snowfalls, they feel compelled to bark every time they hear noise from above. Usually all this sudden woofing scares me right out of my chair, so I discourage this level of doggie vigilance.
By January, the canines have generally settled down, since the roof marauder never seems to materialize. But I can’t imagine what they’d do if they heard a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer up there.