Sourdough Starter

This post is more for a friend who has been struggling a bit with her sourdough but, of course, everyone is welcome to read it.

I've been thinking about it and have a question for any sourdough experts. Is it possible (or even likely) that an older a starter is, the more active it is? Even if that's true, I'm sure it would depend on the health of the starter but what I'm wondering is . .  my starter is probably 6 years old. Maybe it has adjusted itself to how I do things, to my water, flour, etc. I have no idea.

I fed it this morning and I was peeling a ton of garlic so I was able to set a timer and take pictures along  the rising progress.

I will add, and this is one of those don't do as I do things . . I don't measure. I like to have a very dense/thick starter. For starter/flour/water, my ratio is probably about 1/2/1. I will often add a bit of sugar or honey to the starter when feeding. If I do, say I have 1/2 cup starter, 1 cup flour and maybe 1/2 cup water, but probably a bit less, I would add about 1/4 tsp. sugar or honey. And, my water is highly chlorinated city water (which makes me sad!) but so far, my starter has not complained.

The above photo is one hour after feeding. 

This was 2 hours after feeding.

This was not quite 2.5 hours after feeding. I was getting ready to go downstairs so I put it in bowl, knowing that by the time I go upstairs, it will have gone over the top of the jar and made a mess on the counter.

Other things I was doing while in the kitchen . . in the blue bowl is focaccia in the making, there's a pint jar of garlic getting ready to start fermenting. In the back bowl is another starter - what was left in the bowl after I put some in the jar in the photos above. There was only a bit of starter left in the bowl - maybe 1/4 cup so I need to get it built back up. Between making bread, crackers and now pizza dough, we go through a lot of starter.

It's zucchini season and I'm looking for recipes. This zucchini salad was delicious! The recipe called for lemon juice and olive oil but I subbed balsamic with Italian herbs for the lemon juice. I didn't have pine nuts so I use some macadamia nuts and some pistachios. We pick up our Azure Standard order tomorrow and I have one pound of pine nuts coming. I've been out for almost a month so I'll be happy to get those things.