Welcome back, and happy May! Let’s hope all the rain we got in April brings plenty of May flowers; perhaps you’re even rained in today, in which case you could enjoy another puzzle or two.

This month’s entry is another Shikaku puzzle. As a reminder, Darcy Miller wants to separate her chickens to conserve her farmland; however, her chickens are rather particular about where they like to graze and how much space they require. Your goal is to divide the land (a grid) into sections that satisfy the following conditions:

• Each section must be a rectangle or square, and it must contain exactly one chicken. Sections cannot overlap.
• The number on each chicken represents the area of the section that the chicken should occupy.

The pictures below depict a sample puzzle on a 5×5 grid, along with its solution. The cells are colored to match the number on each chicken, and the solid white borders help distinguish each section of land.

Now, can you solve the puzzle below and help Darcy divide her farmland?

The solution will be released in the next blog post. Also, if you tried the puzzle from the last blog entry, here is its solution below. It’s a miracle that this kind of quilt can stay together!