Pumpkin Carving Safety Tips

By Samuetta Hill Drew October ushers in many traditional fall social activities. Annual fall social events range from high school/university homecoming football games with all the myriad festivities associated with it to Halloween parties and trick or treating. The new safety series for October will focus on safety tips for activities usually linked to Halloween. We will begin this series with an article about pumpkin carving safety measures. Pumpkins are all around us in October. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Pumpkins can be purchased at local grocery stores, farmer markets, large retail stores like Sam’s, Walmart, etc. Many families choose to spend a weekend afternoon at their local farmer’s pumpkin patch to ride on rides, eat typically carnival/fair type foods and enjoy the main event – selecting a pumpkin out of the patch to purchase for home. People use these pumpkins to decorate their homes and lawns as well as cooking up tasty pies and treats. Yes, pumpkins play a huge role in fall activities and one such activity is making Jack-O-Lanterns by carving faces into pumpkins. People carve happy faces, funny faces and scary faces. Pumpkin carving has become a fun art form and has even...