Earl's odd stride

Why does Earl start off walking so oddly at the scene of the first dead graboid? It's a scene that is cut short, so we never see what he's up to, but it has always puzzled me. Fred Ward, if you're reading this, let us know what you were doing. Was it this:

The first graboid is killed when it crashes into the cement wall of the irrigation channel while chasing Val and Earl. Val partially unearths the beast, then Earl and Rhonda hop up to see what Val has found. After some discussion, Earl begins stepping along side the corpse in an exaggerated manner, for just a second, before we cut to the next scene. Maybe he was attempting to measure the length of the graboid, stretching his legs to achieve a 36-inch step. 15 feet would be my guess, five Earl-steps worth of prehistoric eating machine. Keep walking, Earl, it might not be as dead as you think!