The system has a moderate battery bank (24VDC) and a 4KW Trace inverter, and whatever source is available charges the batteries.
Spring, summer, and fall, the solar panels provide enough power for my highly-efficient home. Winter... not so much. Sun is a rarity. The wind generator being down at the moment, I have to run the gasoline genny for a few hours once or twice a week to keep the batteries topped up. Usually the wind genny would suffice, since it's pretty windy up here; not steady, but enough.
What you want to do can be done -- I'm doing similar. But it is not effortless. Clearing ice and snow off the panels after a storm is a pain; keeping track of the battery state of charge is a pain.
But on the upside, no electric bill, and the capital investment in the panels, batteries, and inverter has long since amortized away. The local power company (NYSEG) can fail and I don't even know it until a friend calls to ask how I'm doing in the blackout, and I tell them I wasn't aware there was one!
You sound like the weather where you live is very similar to ours. How long do your batteries last? The ones we would get from my brother in law are probably 5 years old or so, used from the state. We can get them pretty cheaply though, a couple hundred dollars.