Ahaha awesome! 
Hey Billy, a very warm welcome to Edgeryders! 
(And thanks to @Alberto for the introductions.) These stories are about the best start you can give yourself here! Here are some wild thoughts off the top of my head that came when reading your ā very inspiring ā stories:
- Charcoal slurry in the furnace? I like Darren's biochar stove as it allows to create high-grade fuel (ok, and soil amendments :) from any stuff with cellulose in it. I recall that charcoal needed for steel melting needs to be of high quality (from hardwood), but for other metals and for hammer-shaping you achieved great results with cheap one. So ... might it be possible to turn charcoal dust into a furnace fuel? That would allow to run all kinds of things like trash paper pellets through the biochar stove for making new furnace fuel ... . Using it as dust is however dangerous (explosive), but people do very interesting experiments with both charcoal/water and charcoal/oil slurries (including charcoal/vegetable oil). It's even useable as a kind of drop-in replacement for Diesel fuel (as per this extensive treatise). So maybe, a furnace could run on such ubiquitous "trash fuel" ...?
- Harvesting slow wind: Saphonian turbine plus Z drive. I just need to dump this here (an idea I had some time ago), maybe you have an idea if this is a promising path to pursue or not: I once found the Saphonian type wind turbine, a bladeless, collapsible wind turbine that was invented by Tunisian company Saphon Energy. It claims a 2.3 times higher efficiency than a bladed design, is more DIY and completely collapsible. Sounds nearly too good for a DIY wind turbine, no? :) Well, and then there's the Z drive mechanics as employed in the steam engines of Green Steam Engine, which seems great for conversion of the back and forth sail movements to a rotational movement.
As you see, I have more ideas about hardware hacking that I get around to do. But I do some (rather simple) projects for my mobile home, like installing a wood stove in the truck. Or the latest one, I finished my 24 V photovoltaics installation (for 100 A total load), and now Iām wondering what to do with the unused solar power I throw away every day when the batteries are full. Latest idea to put this to use: a DIY microwave vacuum dryer for food. Ah well, ideas 
I started a self-supply oriented group ESSENTIAL here. If you post about a project of yours here, also add it there please 