Tommy Bolin

The 'homestead' my wife and I live on is a renovated cabin on a section of timber the original characters built up here in the early '70s. Our family owns the adjacent half section as well, two small cabins. 1000ac total surrounded by Crown land, 2.5 mi. lakefront. All well off grid. No immediate neighbors. Varying degrees of wood heat and propane cooking, solar/batteries and lake/snowmelt cooking/flushing water. House is plumbed, but well is arsenic contaminated, so buckets it is. Store about 700gal of solar pumped lake water for household and fire when climate/season allows. Lil'B grows and hand processes about 6000 organic garlic/year. 'Our family' is 5 guardian dogs, Anatolians and Maremas. 5 barn cats. Tuxedos and tabbies. End of the road. Everybody here has been rehomed/rejected from somewhere else. All have a home for as long as they wish to stay.
Four gardens in rotation. Small root cellar. Smallish greenhouse. Been told by the prime minister of sex and finance that I am building a larger earth sheltered one. Osprey, eagles, owls. Bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars. Moose and deer. Not the useless urban vermin kind.
Sawmill, plenty of reno and construction plans. Lil'B is the gardener, baker, and vet. I can build or fix about anything.

Kei trucks are incredibly popular in Korea, as you might imagine. See them everywhere in Seoul. There is a firetruck version parked on the street in Smithers, B.C. Pretty cool. Outfit out in Alberta, and elsewhere I'm sure, converting them to 4x4 via a snowcat-like independent four wheel track setup.
My neighbor has a pickup type one, don't like it at all, but that's me.
Some US states are revoking/refusing registrations under the idea that any vehicle without a 17 digit V.I.N. even if imported under the 25yr exclusion rule, cannot have passed federal safety standards.  
Would affect these as well. My wife and I have matching 1997 Mitsubishi Jaspers. Turbocharged, 4cyl. diesel, very capable 4x4 with a locking center differential. Fuel efficient, really nice little trucks. Importing one for U.S. registration.

What about all the hundreds  of thousands of boilers operated safely for many, many decades in the prior centuries?
That tractors failing was one of maintenance and carelessness.

Aren't compressors just steam engines in reverse?
This is from Rochester, Nevada, 2010 or so. Probably gone now, the whole ghost town was being swallowed/buried by the tailings pile creeping in from the open pit mine next door.

One engine of some sort drove the big Ingersoll compressor. That vented circular hull in front of it had (long ago vandalized) copper windings for a good sized ( probably DC) Westinghouse generator. After that the draw works/hoist for the head fame in the background. All run from the same power source, maybe steam.

The second photo is from the mine's mechanic shop, of what would have been called an 'ironworker' in the last century. Punch, press, hammer, all pneumatically driven.

If you have a large source ( residential size tank ) of propane and a moderate gen/fuel need, then propane is a fine choice. Propane has difficulty in cold weather sooner than properly treated diesel. Small tanks, <100lb, have difficulty giving enough vapor at temps of -30C or so and below. Diesel is fine down to -40C if proper winter fuel is available, all water is eliminated from system, and fuel is treated to prevent waxing of filter. Gelling is not usually a problem, waxing and any water always is. Gasoline wins for coldest weather, but is the least safe option.
I'm thinking propane gen set has cheaper up front cost per kw.
If cold is not an issue, then fuel availability and transportation ease, cost,  will help you decide. For us a trip to town for anything is a 4hr time commitment, no delivery of anything out here.

Diesel is beast for longevity, however, propane runs very, very clean, engine oil stays cleaner far longer than with either diesel or gasoline.  Seems good to me. We have a 6kw liquid cooled Honda gen set converted to propane from day one 25 years ago. Light usage, excellent results. To attempt to compare fuel consumption without exact side by side comparison seems a bit shortsighted.

Current crop of quality inverter/generator sets, 7.5kw+ either fuel source, would likely show THD<5%, w/stable or adjustable voltages. How much better do you need. They also derive their current mandated efficiency from complexity, just like an auto. Not as easily repaired as they used to be.

'Clean' pure sine wave power and auto start are great, but probably double the cost of your inverter.

High quality deep cycle batteries are cheaper per delivered kwhour/charge cycle of usage than any 'dual purpose or RV' battery. Best way to shorten the lifespan of any battery is chronic undercharging, and a generator with some little battery charger is the best way to ensure you recycle your batteries early. The harder you use/load your batteries, the better your charge system needs to be. My old Trace SW4024 cleans up and makes good use of 'dirty' generator power, I would not consider charging these batteries in any other way and we run all our house AC needs through it.

We do exactly as was mentioned at times. My 4.5kw Cummins/Onan delivers 20+ amps to an L-16  battery bank that would like to see 40, but we run it to take the occasional heavy load off of the system. 15-20% less power on propane than gasoline, believe. Another 1200w of panels/controllers if I made the space w/daylight usage, would be far cheaper and more cost effective long term than the 7kw generator/fuel I would need to get those 40 amps. That gen set would also cost 3-4x the 1000.00USD I paid for that efficient little Onan.
We get along by not needing power and by giving in to gasoline/propane generators for my welder and heavy/non-battery power tools. Simple.

Don't forget, cold ( well below freezing ) solar panels deliver as much as 20+% more voltage (not amps) than warm ones. that's real power if your MPPT controller can make use of it.
My south facing front yard slopes down to a 400ac lake that freezes over in November. All that snow, Nov. to Apr., means my solar gain is not as diminished by winter days as a lot of folk's.  
Been off grid part time/most time in B.C. for about 30 years. That's my experience.
Not enough information in the original question, why the thread answers are so varied.

Felled, limbed, hauled, bucked, split and stuffed the last of the firewood for this winter. 'B finished strawing her garlic few days ago in the newest garden.
Got some road work done.
Spreading straw for the dogs to nest in for the winter under the big spruces they favor.
Squaring some timbers on the sawmill that I cut prior with the chainsaw mill.
Tilling the two fallow gardens in prep for tarping.

Yes.
We have about a thousand mixed heavy timbered/open forest acres in B.C. about 20 miles off the end of the pavement. Family compound. Rent a section to rancher for cattle in the summer. Typically heavy winter snow. Maintain 3.5 miles of fencing and fireguard, building another 1.5 miles of fence. 6+miles of road for our family and one neighbor. Renovated early 70's cabin. Off grid, no running water. Just starting the construction process for all the additionals and to generate income. (Somewhat) heavy equipment.
'85 John Deere 550B dozer.
'79 John Deere 450C crawler backhoe; Drott 4way bucket.
'68 Case 430 tractor for PTO chipper and mower.
'95 Dodge Ram 3/4 ton 4x4 Bought/built a hydraulic dump box conversion.
Only own these because I can fix/maintain them myself.

I admire your Hobbitarian ethic.
You seem to have solved your problem of screws, but Magard Tools in Prince George, B.C. sells them reasonably. 120.00CAD/40, plus shipping, for anyone else looking similar.
Maurice Gardy has retired, site is now Log Building Tools, everything for log/timber frame construction.
I bought a WoodlandMills 6inch PTO chipper from them. Maurice was a pleasant chap, Scott recently bought the business, and was the person I bought the machine from. Very helpful, excellent to deal with, therefore this plug.
There is apparently an earth berm greenhouse in my near future, Lil'B saw our neighbor's this spring and when told she had greens all winter, and it gets -35F here in interior B.C. every winter pretty much, I was told I was building one.
Worked as a carpenter off and on for more than 40yrs. I like wood and I like different. Good luck.