How To Mix Concrete

I've mixed concrete for many projects around the house. For everything from sidewalks to filling post holes. Learning how to mix it really isn't all that hard. For most small projects you can get away with using bags of pre-mixed concrete from your local hardware store. But if you have a really large project like a house slab, you'll need to have concrete hauled in on a truck.

If you're using bags of pre-mix, the instructions are printed right on the bag. You simply dump the concrete into a wheelbarrow or plastic tubs sold specifically for mixing concrete. Add a little water at a time, shoveling the mix thoroughly, until you come up with a mix that is the consistency of pancake batter.

If you have a larger project, it may pay to gather the essential ingredients for concrete and mix them all together at the project site. The main components for concrete are:

• Cement



• Sand



• Gravel



• Water

The appropriate measurements are: 1 Part Cement - 2 Parts Sand - 3 Parts Gravel - Water to Proper Consistency

You need to mix the cement, sand and gravel thoroughly before adding any water. Start out doubling all the ingredients (2 parts cement - 4 parts sand - 6 parts gravel) until you find out what size batches are easiest for you to mix. There is some labor involved in the mixing, but you'll have a stronger back when the project is finished. Once all the dry parts are mixed, simply add water while stirring until you come up with the pancake consistency. You don't want the concrete too dry or too wet. As a precaution, wear gloves when mixing concrete to minimize skin contact.

Read more

How To Make Egg Omelets - Easy Omelet Recipe

If you've always wanted to learn how to make an easy omelet, now you can. No skillet involved. Just a couple of eggs, a Ziploc bag and whatever omelet fillings you desire. You can even make a homemade egg and cheese omelet within minutes with this easy recipe. Let's get started!

Single Serving Egg Omelet Recipe

1-2 eggs
1-Ziploc bag
1-pot of boiling water
Fillings for your omelet

Directions:
Open up your Ziploc bag. Crack your egg(s) open and pour it into the bag. Zip the bag shut and squish and shake. Now open the bag and add your fillings (ham, cheese, peppers, mushrooms, whatever sounds good). Close the bag and remove as much air as you can. Shake and squish the bag a little more to mix the fillings with the egg(s). When all the ingredients look mixed, just slowly drop the bag into the pot of boiling water. Leave the bag in the water for about 5-6 minutes. After the time is up, remove the bag from the boiling water and let it sit about a minute to cool off. Then dump the egg omelet out onto your plate. All you should need now is a little salt and pepper and you're set. Enjoy your homemade egg omelet!

Read more

How To Keep Your Hands Soft When Gardening

Tired of rough hands after digging in the dirt? Not only do goatskin gloves keep your hands clean while gardening, but they're also naturally rich in skin conditioning lanolin. Don't want to go to the expense of buying goatskin gloves, priced reasonably around $10.00 a pair? Just rub on some lanolin lotion before slipping on a pair of your favorite garden gloves. Another great secret for keeping hands soft while gardening is Corn Huskers Lotion. Apply it before and after working in the garden and you'll walk away with smoother feeling skin.

Read more

How To Remove a Tick - Tick Bites

Alright, first you grab your propane torch and light it and then....no wait!! That's for glazing a ham. If only removing ticks properly were so easy. OK. The first thing you want to do is find the nasty little parasites within 24 hours. There's less chance of the little blood-suckers spreading diseases if found within that time-frame according to FDA Consumer Magazine. Now some of those ticks can hide in some places we'll not mention here, but I think you get the idea. Go grab some tweezers and get as close to the head of the tick as possible. You don't want to rip the tick off in shreds. There's no real trick to removing ticks. Just grab close to the head and pull slowly. Once you remove the tick you can take it outside and light a match to it until it pops, an ample source of entertainment for some beer drinkin' buddies after a hard day working in the bush. Or you can flush the tick, wrap it in a piece of clear tape, whatever your pleasure. You don't need to call Poison Control and have them come pick it up for disposal. Of course, you may want to hold onto the tick for a few days just in case you start getting symptoms of Lyme Disease or any other diseases that you can't explain to your significant other for that matter. In that case, just wrap a clear piece of tape over the tick and put it some place safe. Oh yeah, and don't forget to use a disinfectant, like alcohol, on the tick bite area to keep risk of infection to a minimum.

Read more

How Much Milk Per Day - Source of Calcium

How much milk should you really drink per day? No more than 1-2 8 ounce servings of milk per day for a good source of calcium is what most dietitians recommend. Higher daily intakes of milk have been found to lead to prostate cancer. If you're lactose intolerant or milk just isn't your thing, you can eat calcium-rich broccoli and other leafy green vegetables, like collards. Tofu and beans also fill the bill for suitable calcium intake. And don't forget, all the milk and calcium in the world won't do your bones a bit of good without proper exercise!

Read more

How To Remove Norton Anti-Virus Software

How do you get rid of Norton Anti-Virus Software or any other Norton products when you can't remove it through the add/remove programs in the control panel, you ask? Well, many people have problems removing a failed installation or a damaged Norton product. I was recently in the position of removing a damaged Norton Anti-Virus installation from a friend's computer with Windows XP Home Edition installed. I messed with it for about an hour before finally heading to the internet in search of help. All complaints finally led to the ultimate fix, the Norton Removal Tool. Just download the correct Norton Removal Tool for whatever flavor you have installed and you'll be set to get the failed software removed from your computer.

Read more

How To Use Leaves in Fall

It's Fall. Your yard is covered with leaves. How do you use those fallen leaves to your advantage? If you do any type of gardening you can make leaf mold with your leaves. And use that leaf mold in your vegetable or flower beds come next summer when you need a good mulch or soil amendment to hold moisture and enrich your soil. Making leaf mold need not be a difficult task. Simply rake and bag your leaves and throw the bags in a pile hidden away somewhere in the backyard. By mid-summer the leaves will have broken down good enough to use as a mulch around plants to conserve precious moisture. If you have the space and some leftover fencing you can make some leaf mold bins and stuff the leaves down in them tight. If you have a vegetable garden you can go ahead and till your leaves into the garden now and the leaves will help improve the tilth of your garden soil. You can also add leaves directly to your compost pile. There is no reason for anyone to have to burn leaves in the Fall. If you're not into gardening, just bag the leaves up and offer them to your gardening friends. Most will be happy to take and use your fallen leaves.

Read more

How To Make a Homemade Ice Pack

You may, at one time or another in your life, find yourself needing a homemade ice pack. A sprained ankle. An aching back. It doesn't matter what the condition is, you'll just want relief, and quick! You can make an ice pack quickly by adding 3 cups of water and 1 cup of rubbing alcohol to a one gallon freezer bag. Seal the bag and then slide this bag inside another 1 gallon freezer bag and seal, to minimize any leaks. These really work better than many of the commercial ice packs found in stores. And the best part is that it is cheap!

Read more

How To Get Engine Grease Out of Clothes

I love working on cars and trucks. But with some projects you'll find me covered in engine grease and grime and it inevitably ends up staining my clothes. You can use a commercial laundry detergent to try to remove the stain, but most of the times you'll pull the piece of clothing out of the dryer and find that the stain still remains. Well, those clothes usually end up becoming my work clothes, if they weren't already. That is, until I started using a product I just recently found at our local auto parts store. Greased Lightning. The stuff is like a wonder cleaner. There are actually three different formulations that I've found locally. One is in a purple bottle. One is in a white bottle. And the third is in a clear bottle. The stuff in the purple bottle works like magic. You should be able to find it at Auto Zone if you have one nearby. The stuff in the white bottle is good for using on clothes to remove stains and general household cleaning. I found it at Dollar General in the cleaning supplies. The orange stuff in the clear bottle, well I haven't found a good use for it yet. It does smell good though. Maybe it would make a good air freshener? The company that makes it also offers coupons for their products. To get engine grease out of your clothes, simple spray the cleaner on and rinse off. Now back to the Greased Lightning in the purple bottle. Again, this is my favorite. I've used it to detail the engine bay. It melts brake dust buildup off of wheels like ice cream on sizzlin' blacktop in July. So if you have a stubborn greasy stain (like engine grease) that you want to get out of a piece of clothing then go see if you can find some of this stuff because it really does work great!

Read more

How To Tell the Age of a Tree

You can tell how old a tree is, or the age of a tree, by counting the dark rings from a trunk cut section of the tree. You will notice that trees have a very dark center in the tree. This is known as the pith. Start counting the dark rings outside the dark center (don't confuse the pith with the heartwood) and you'll have the age of the tree by however many rings you counted. By knowing the age of a cut or fallen tree, you can guesstimate the age of a local stand of similar trees. You can also learn about the growth of the tree by its rings. Large bands will indicate years when the tree made substantial growth. This means the tree grew under optimal conditions in those years. Small bands usually indicate that the tree grew under less than optimal conditions, such as stress and dry weather. Try counting the rings on the next downed tree that you find to see if you can tell the age of that tree.

Read more