You've mentioned before that the wind blows right through your house...is there anything you can do about THAT? That seems like it would be a good place to start.

I was inspired to do some reading about solar power today. Basic article on wikipedia covered a lot of interesting turf:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy

Things that particularly jumped out at me were the concept of the "roof pond" that heats and cools your house just by covering and uncovering the "pond" that is your roof. Also, SODIS (water purification using only the plastic bottles you have anyway)