Spider on the night shift

Steve and I went to the Shamrock Club session for a little while tonight (we left early, but that's another story altogether). When we came home, the dogs rushed out the back door to play in the yard. They like to hunt worms at night, but I wanted them to come into the house. I took the big flashlight and searched the back yard to find out where they had gone. The light caught this spider hard at work weaving its web.

I've no idea what species it is, but by the web it was making, it's probably an orb weaver spider.

I watched it working this rather large web for a bit before getting the camera out. The spider was about 2 inches in diameter, including the legs.

I'm pretty amazed at how hairy the spider is in close view. The dogs snagged one of the anchor lines and it immediately scrambled toward the pole it was working from and huddled in a defensive posture.